Nantucket Essays

Song of the Open Road
Nantucket Essays

Song of Youth

~ by Robert P. Barsanti ~ Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, Walt Whitman has joined the crew. He is not old. He does not have wild hair, a fifty year beard, and leather leggings. As far as I can tell, […]

Orion Departing | Nantucket Essay
Nantucket Essays

Orion Departing

~ by Robert P. Barsanti ~ I have walked passed the snow shovels for weeks. One of them dates back into the eighties, when you could sell shovels that had a teflon coating and would hold pounds of snow; a shovel for the young man who scorned the Nautilus machines […]

Season of Sticks
Nantucket Essays

Season of the Stick

~ by Robert P. Barsanti ~ The wind builds. I stand at the door, over a mug of Pumpkin Spice coffee and the birches are clattering together, the clouds tumble overhead, and an uncomfortable and expensive whistle rises from the sliding doors on the porch. My Boon Companion stands on […]

Nantucket Essays

Days Like Tomatoes

~ by Robert P. Barsanti ~ I was driving between the fields at Bartlett’s when I noticed the moon rising up from the pine trees. I pulled the old car over, but left it running. In the dry and cool Autumn air, the moon processed through one thin line to […]

Nantucket Whalers Football
Nantucket Essays

You Play This Game the Rest of Your Life

~ by Robert Barsanti ~ I watch them. They run across the parking lot in a clatter of cleats and mud. The helmet dangles from one hand and while the other grasps the ball. They are wearing practice shirts with tears and dirt ground into them. Their socks fall down […]

Nantucket Essays

Red Wheelbarrow

~ by Robert P. Barsanti ~ As ordered, a pile of rich loam appeared at end of the driveway on Tuesday morning. The loam had come from the dump, created from the garbage and trash of the previous hundred years of half eaten sandwiches and rotting milk. Give food enough […]

Last Day on Nantucket
Nantucket Essays

The Last Day

~ by Robert P. Barsanti ~ On his last day, he woke early. He eased out of bed, one foot, turned to a knee, and then slipped out without bouncing the mattress. She slept on; he wanted to be alone for a moment. No noise slipped from the girls room, […]