Empty Boat

Once there was a man who filmed his vacation.
He went flying down the river in his boat
with his video camera to his eye, making
a moving picture of the moving river
upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly
toward the end of his vacation. He showed
his vacation to his camera, which pictured it,
preserving it forever: the river, the trees,
the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat
behind which he stood with his camera
preserving his vacation even as he was having it
so that after he had had it he would still
have it. It would be there. With a flick
of a switch, there it would be. But he
would not be in it. He would never be in it.


The Vacation, by Wendell Berry


Some impulse sent me to Bar Harbor on this rainy, rainy day, to run a couple of errands and jostle amongst the dense crowds of people with my small black umbrella. Along with the lobster boats, whale watching catamarans, tour boats, small cruise ships, and atrocious super yachts, was this little rowboat which caught me eye, floating quietly in the eye of tourist hurricane.