Produced by Maine Poetry Central and Dennis Camire

This week’s poem, by former Maine Poet Laureate Betsy Sholl, explores the stoic, hardscrabble lives of Maine’s few remaining clam diggers. In many ways it’s a subtle ode to these lives.

 

The Clam Diggers

Addison, Maine

 

Through grit thicker than coffee grounds,

they bend to look for what bores in

 

and spits air bubbles out. They dig

for what’s hidden, what clasps itself shut

 

and keeps its secrets. Each clam’s a coin

in the pocket. From the shore it seems

 

a poor way to keep the bank off their backs,

their backs bend double over mud beds,

 

looking down at darker selves staring up.

But, clearly, they know what they know,

 

how shallow leads to deep, how nothing keeps

back the tide’s turn, stops algae from closing the flats.

 

When the last of the tide trickles out

they step into muck that sucks their boots.

 

Gulls shriek in morning fog, mud gullies drain,

then slowly fill. They know what drags a body

 

down, what lifts it up, what squints an eye,

stiffens a back. On this strand where the sea

 

seeps in and the shoreline drifts, makeshift

is how they live. On wet silt and sift they stand.

 

Dennis Camire can be reached at [email protected]