Christmas at Sea

Monday, December 16, 2024 at 4:30 p.m.

Christmas at Sea Poster by Frank S. Lovewell

Please join with us next Monday, December 16, 2024 at 4:30 p.m. at the Federated Church in downtown Edgartown for a program of Maritime holiday cheer. There will be plenty of music, fellowship, poetry and storytelling, honoring this wonderful time of year. We call it Christmas at Sea.

The number of musicians singing and playing musical instruments is overflowing, plus there will be familiar faces all possessed with good cheer.

The Federated Church choir directed by Peter Boak will ornament the evening. Add Brian W. Weiland, a celebrated singer and acoustic musician. In other places he does so much more.

Steve Ewing, the islands noted poet will recite. Matthew Stackpole, a maritime enthusiast, will share a story.

Molly Conole and Mark Alan Lovewell will do plenty of this and that.

This is a community driven program you can’t get anywhere else.

Matthew Stackpole and Steve Ewing

And to insure everyone gets some holiday fellowship, a reception will follow.

Music Abounds

Molly and I’ve been in the thick of making music. For many December is a time of singing, stomping our feet on the ground and bell ringing.

Brian Weiland joined with Molly Conole and I in the living room for a musical rehearsal.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wondered in this past few weeks where there was a professional photographer to capture some of the fun we’ve had getting ready for this coming show. The list of rehearsals, the hours we’ve spent singing, conferring with some of this island’s most talented musicians and we aren’t getting all the pictures.

Oh well!

You’ll just have to use your imagination.

We are Going to Oregon, Again

The word is out. Molly and I have been invited to share our maritime songs and poetry at the 27th annual Fisherpoets Gathering in Astoria, Oregon from February 23 and 24, 2025.

Please check this link for more: Fisherpoets.Org

This is a big trip for Molly and myself. Commercial fishermen, who write poetry, gather to share their stories through words and music. And joining with these performers is an audience that knows no equal.

Astoria is a small city at the foot of the Columbia River. There is plenty of salt and stories tied into that community. For Molly and I the performing is just a piece of a bigger story. Our fish hold gets filled. Our spirits raised by all these amazing people. Native Americans and fellow mariners come from as far north as Alaska. And they come from all along the West Coast. There are a few of us who trek all the way from the East Coast. And together we make magic.

Ashley, the woodstove, is all fired up.

We are spending a lot of time now with Ashley, our woodstove. The catboat Sea Chantey is on the hard. This past week we covered her with a brand new tarp. She is under wraps until April, at the earliest.

Old Woodstove

By Mark Alan Lovewell

Even when she’s cast-iron cold,
There is warmth within her sinew.

This old woodstove has warmed so many nights,
She’s driven cold away, in the height of multiple snowstorms.

This cold cast-iron stove hosts a black cauldron of earthly colors, each bidding me,
Of stories, books, meals and naps have a treasured place here.

Even before the Kitchen-safety match is struck,
Warmth already cuts through the stillness in my heart.

Woodstoves don’t just live in the immediate;
They carry a far broader palette.
Woodstoves mark a trailhead of caring.
Remember the walk in the forest 30 years ago?
When the leaves crunched underfoot,
The crows cawed above.
The nut-carrying squirrels watched nearby?
We and the children carried fresh cut logs and piled them.
Of a son and a daughter almost playing, almost working,
Almost beating the cold of the winter wind with their foggy breath,
They made the best out of a family ritual.
They made the burden almost joyful.

Gathering fresh cut oak logs.
Hard wood, the hardest wood.
No pine, no soft moldy crumbling branches.
Only the hardest, the best and most fragrant here.

In this moment, on this cold winter night,
This woodstove is beyond the warmth of temperature for me.
The charcoal, the crackling, the rising smoke, the red warmth,
The smell of other days behind, they are all part of a confluence.
This house is a living breathing source of goodness.
Of comfort, of tightly closed windows and doors,
Drafts of comfort move throughout inside,
while icicles form on the overhang outside.

By morning the last of the glowing cinders
Will have done all they can do.
By morning, I’ll be better for it all.
Having lived through a symphony of simmering dreams, smells, sounds, and the closest,
Thoughts and wanderings.
I give thanks to my friend, this old woodstove.

Catboat Sea Chantey was covered with a brand new tarp this past week. We got ten years out of the old one. Holes took over.

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