'Away'

In a sou'wester hat and oilskin bright,

"Are you from away?" He said to me;

In the bay just beyond the bight,

He surely seemed a man of the sea.

"Away,' I thought what does he mean?

And then I realized - 'not from here'.

So I nodded feeling a little green

As through the cut I watched him steer.

And he grinned at me, all knowing,

In a sympathetic sort of way;

His weathered face and his pipe glowing

As I tossed my cookies into the bay.

"Aye, it will be a good day fishing,

The lobster like that kind of bait."

While of course for death I was wishing

As he chuckled at my sorry state.

But in that spring in northern Maine,

On that rocky coast of fog and cold;

There it was a man I became

Upon those seas tossed and rolled.

And the greatest thing I'll not pretend

Are the words I never heard him say;

But there it was at season's end,

I was no longer from 'away'.