Now that it is derby time, I have been thinking (and eating) fish. I like fish, but I don’t like to fish. As a child, I would drop a line off the Edgartown wharf or the Menemsha dock with my brother John and we would catch scup.

When you’re a kid, there are monsters under your bed. When you’re an adult, there are boxes in your basement. The spookiness never stops, does it? It happens every time we move. No matter if we are going to a larger space or a smaller space, nothing can stop the proliferation of unopened and unemptied boxes, most likely left to grow old in your basement — or even rot in storage in some other community.

I will readily admit that fall is my favorite season of the year. The fact that I work at the Polly Hill Arboretum (a tree museum!) makes it possible for me to see the collective fall color of over 1,300 different trees and shrubs.

As I joined the line waiting to enter the meeting room, I greeted and joked with some of the oyster growers in a manner customary among close friends. Like old friends coming together at a funeral, our jolly small talk denied the seriousness of the occasion.

The Irish have been scattered to the four corners of the earth since 1607 when the defeated Earls fled to Spain hoping to return to fight another day with the English armies overwhelming their country. By the 1680s, France had become their destination of choice, and all Irish children learn the story of Patrick Sarsfield who gave his life for his adopted country during the religious wars, mourning only that he was not dying for Ireland.

The following poem is by Warren Woessner, a birding enthusiast and bard who wanders the shorelines of the Island.