A far more simple life, some say,
with cocktails for a grand.
Cut farmers’ market’s vibrant blooms,
decline in rusted cans.
Wise diplomats, keen journalists,
deep psychoanalysts
sip pinot and pontificate
about why life’s amiss.
While “Summer people, summer not”
is lost on those who strive,
to have, not be, and fail to see
most struggle to survive.
II
Still Sphinxian she gazes out
with nature’s neutral view:
“Till this soil, paint these vistas;
’til golden days are through.
Then isle go on in harmony,
my elemental state;
your footprints and ideas gone,
our universal fate.”
Ed Dalton first ferried to Martha’s Vineyard in the late 1970s when he rented a bicycle, rode the Island, and stayed at the West Tisbury Hostel. He, his wife Elizabeth, and their three daughters have spent many, wonderful summers on the Vineyard. They reside in Framingham.
