Running Out Not much time left     here     in the other Brooklin overlooking    Herrick Bay driven like an anchor into the town's center it is as though all of the animals had come out of the woods to speak     now     in that instant     when the season     flees and leaves its shards in the middens the black bear, the gray coyote, the broad-tailed hawk who all summer have been so assiduously hiding     appear my neighbor     won't go out of her house alone and when the full moon hangs low in the branches and doesn't     annihilate the stars there's nowhere to hide     from its cold pallor all stands exposed     osmotic hunks     creatures who breathe so when a man staggers red-faced and drunk up Naskeag Road in the direction of town and blunders into a woman's house through     an unlocked door     looking for help late one Sunday afternoon     he's done for and the signs of damage are the skidmarks and the gold Volkswagon beetle     a once souped-up job fuming in the roadside bushes     and going farther and farther into the woods every time the story is told. . . and yesterday, at dusk, while the last shadows were holding their ground against the spreading redness I paused by Arthur Smith's, whose house stands on the level after the steepest hill in the world. And I said, "Hi Arthur, how're ya doin'?" "Better today. Gettin' better every day. By the time I reach a-hundred I ought to be a man." And poked his fork into some meat on the grill, shook his head and said: "Not quite done yet. . ." Just beyond, the harbor was packed with boats and cars lined up on the side of the road. It could have been Singapore.