(emotional music) - [Narrator] The Eastern Shore Virginia lies on a 70 mile long peninsula surrounded by Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Chesapeake Bay to the west.

Because of the remoteness of this area, its farming and fishing routes have been slow to change over the past centuries.

13 miles off the bay side of the peninsula is the island of Tangier, a place where some say time has forgotten.

A place of hard work, great pride, and amazing natural beauty, a place where your word and your handshake still matter.

Watermen here still harvest crab, oysters and fish as they have since Tangier was first settled by the English in the late 17th century.

It's not an easy way of life, says a waterman.

In fact, it's true labor of love.

Sadly today though, this magical place Tangier, its island and its history are slowly disappearing into the bay.

(flute plays) This is the story of Willie C. Crockett Jr. A Tangier man, an artist, a poet, and a philosopher.

All the paintings that you're about to see, and nearly all the poetry that you're about to hear are Willie's.

- It was a great place to grow up.

It was really a great place.

Before I became a teenager, I knew just about every fish in the water.

I had helped catch 'em and clean them and, you know, and transport 'em and all kinds of things with 'em.

So I knew a lot about all these things.

And the same thing with birds.

I had memorized all these birds.

It was a great place to grow up, you know.

And then I knew all the ducks and all the geese, and I knew all the jobs.

I knew how to catch crabs, and I knew how to read crabs.

I knew everything from a soft crab to a junk crab, and all that was important.

But I didn't realize, now that I'm an artist, I realize how much I had learned in those young days.

You know.

(timer beeps) It's funny, looking back on all the plans, the promises we made came true, and we didn't even know.

We slept so soundly in our guilt, turned our backs on the sun and splashed away the time as if there was such thing.

And the new emotions that thrived upon our youth.

Sunday schools, Gods and devils could not shake loose, and we were left alone to circumstance.

And yet somehow we're glad we didn't follow all the wise advice given us by sages and by saints.

Alas, we made our own mistakes.

We made our own arrangements with the faith.

Uncle Charlie had an old boat there laying on the ditch, you know, there laying on the side.

And he thought maybe someday he'd patch her up, but he never did, and she finally died right there.

Well, she was getting older by the minute, but we used to play in her.

So as I got older, I reflected back on that period of my life again.

A lot of my poetry comes from that, that age.

And it starts off by saying I didn't see the history in Uncle Charlie's old boat, half sunk and half resting in the amber marshes.

I made engine noises with my lips, pulled in heavy scrapes and oyster tone.

And sailing my small world with all the excellence of a child's imagination.

It is only now that I am old, it all seems so poetic when I was young, when all the elements of substance and form was there, I raced ahead, crashing headlong through tomorrows, never knowing I would come this way again in memories and refer to them as yesterday.

It seems most strange I could have missed back then what is so clearly now the meaning of it all.

The prophet said, your young man shall see visions.

Your old men shall dream dreams.

And to me the point is clear.

That now is all we have, now that makes a young man's dreams and an all man's memories all the same.

Now is the accepted time.

And today, always the day of our salvation.

(hopeful music) I was memorizing poetry very early.

Most of it had to do with religion.

Most of it had to do with the Bible, memorizing different passages of the Bible.

And I got very good at that.

Plus I got brownie points from my family, of course, for doing that.

And then I went on to memorizing other things like the spider and the fly and things like that.

When I got in high school, I really, I really got into poetry and enjoyed the teaching.

Our teachers were good with that.

They made us memorize poetry.

There's not much of that left, and I'm glad, that was a good thing for me.

One of my teachers, her name was Ms. Williams, and she, I don't know where she graduated from.

She was an excellent teacher and she would read poetry to us and for the first time I got to know poetry like it should have been read and should have been understood.

And she helped me to understand it.

I remember one day she came in and she said, I have a poem here that I want to read to you, and it's a very good poem and it's called Elegy in a Country Churchyard.

And Elegy is a story on death, you know, and what you do, you've got to understand this.

And listen to what he says.

And she explained how a curfew meant, what a curfew meant, and so on, and things like that, that we didn't know.

And she said, now I want you to put your head on your desk and listen to these words.

This is written by Thomas Gray, and he is a superb artist.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, the lowering herd winds lowly o'er the lea, the plowman homeward plods his weary way, and leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the site, and all the world of solemn stillness holds, save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, and drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.

Save where from yonder ivy-mantled tower the moping owl does to the moon complain of such that wonders near her ancient power, molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, the yew tree's shade, where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap, each in his narrow cell forever laid, the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

That's just one part.

It's a long, long poem, but wow, I just couldn't, I couldn't believe that it was so beautiful.

I was a teenager and these boys, I knew all these men for years and I didn't know them well.

I grew up around them, but I didn't know they did this until I was coming home from a date one night.

And I came to the bridge and here they are, and they're waxing eloquent on the bridge, and they're just having a great time and they're just quoting poetry, right and left.

And I was so, I was dumbfounded by how much they knew.

And we had, one was named Orville, Orville Prewett.

One was named Jimmy Haney.

He was probably the most educated.

He had a master's degree in art.

Orville was a captain on a tug boat.

The one we called Kisses, he was the real poet in the lot.

He was great with Shakespeare.

He quoted Shakespeare in a lot of universities up north, and he was very good.

And there was a few others.

But these were the main three.

But they'd stand there, and he asked me, Willie, do you know any Shakespeare?

I said, a little bit.

He said, well, come join us.

He said, I know your father don't think much of us, he said, and he's probably right, but you can learn a lot with us.

And Jimmy Haney, he said, yeah, but me thinks he does protest too much.

(Willie laughs) And it was so cute the way they carry on.

But they liked me and they enjoyed doing that for me.

I mean, and these guys didn't hardly consider themselves a part of the rest of the honor.

They were in a world of their own and they considered themselves unique and gifted.

And, you know, because they knew these things and they were well read.

And I really got to love them.

And they were a real influence on me.

So then I started Shakespeare, but it's hard to learn Shake- Shakespeare wasn't made to be read.

It was made to be listened to, you know?

And so I tried to read Shakespeare.

Well, all I was doing was hurting myself because I didn't know.

I didn't have enough information to understand that, still don't for that matter.

But I learned, I picked out things that I liked and memorized them.

And I finally got good at it.

And I memorized tons of it.

I remember Kisses, one we call Kisses.

He was the best poet of a whole bunch of them.

But he said, look out there, Willie.

You see that?

You see that light on the water out there?

He said, it reminds me of a poem, he said, and he started quoting it.

He said, how sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bay.

Here will we sit and let the sounds of music creep into our ears?

Soft stillness and the night become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica, look how the floor of heaven is thick and laid with patterns and bright gold.

Does not the smallest orb which thou behold, sow in its motion line, such harmony is in immortal souls.

But whilst this muddy vest of decay does grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Isn't that beautiful?

(chuckles) I wrote a poem about my first girlfriend and we grew up together, and we were engaged for some time and we had a real love affair.

And we thought it would go on and on forever, but it didn't.

And she came in to visit me one day up in the studio, and she came up and pecked me on the cheek.

And I looked at her and she was crying.

And I said to her, Grace, what's the matter?

She said, nothing's the matter.

She said, I was just thinking back on all the good times we used to have.

I said, yeah, we did.

And so when she left, I walked her to the car and I came back and once I had sat down and I wrote this little poem about her.

It said, ours was a fragile love.

I saw the ghost of circumstance behind those tender eyes and was afraid to look away, because I knew a day like this would come.

A fragile love, yet strong enough to hold some guilt throughout the years to keep your eyes from meeting mine lest they betrayed some marriage of our souls.

But tell me when last we met, were there any tears?

And were they yours or mine, and did our eyes hold long enough before you ran away?

I never knew.

And now that all is said and done, what is left to say, that things worked out the way they should?

And was this circumstantial ghost our guardian angel all along?

Then what of moonlight nights and the promises we made beneath the stars?

I say it was a fragile love because it was too weak to hold us, and yet throughout the years would never let us go.

I like that little poem.

The ospreys have been a part of my life for years and years.

They nest on the beacons and on the old dead trees on the islands like Watts Island and all around Tangier.

And we just grew up knowing them.

When you disturb them, they'll whistle at you.

They don't like to have people around much, and they just fluff up their feathers and scowl at you.

But they're a beautiful bird and I always loved them.

And so one day I was just out there looking at them and I started writing this little poem.

See her sailing on the spirit wind, surveying Neptune's treasures for a gem.

She plunges downward to the sea, rising with a silver parade the morning on her wings, see her on leaf forsaken trees, on beacons, green and red.

She builds a future there of sticks and straw.

And with defiant air and fiery eye, she whistles threats at passersby.

Now silhouette against the western sky, the sun has spread a blazing carpet through the sea and to a world of dreams it beckons me.

The stately male now dark against the light, prunes his battered wings and folds them back.

And I caught in this frozen moment, said aloud, goodnight.

I don't know why.

I so enjoyed their company, clearly they did not feel the same for me.

I left them with the night, but in my camera and in my soul, I took them home with me.

Well, a lot of times the fog will really mess you up.

You know, it all joins together.

There's no separation of sea and sky and everything diffuses and all the edges of things dissipates, and things don't have any bearing on anything else.

They look like they're floating in air.

And you look down into the water and they're reflecting the clouds above them.

And so it all looks the same.

So it looks like you're looking down into a cloud rather than on the water.

Any waterman has seen this a time or two.

And it's sort of an interesting time.

I've come this way a thousand times on a thousand different days and have followed with the seagulls, the foaming tide lines of the bay.

But today, the place is new.

A hazel fog now rests upon this silent sea and blurs the edge of all that can be seen.

No separation now, sea and sky, no horizon, no perspective, islands seem to float in air and looking down into the sea.

There seagulls fly where fishes ought to be.

Objects rearranged all seem to drift without purpose, plan or place.

All above me sinks below and all below me lifts.

But please do not misunderstand me.

I am not lost or drunk or mad.

I could draw a simple line to bring it back to focus anytime.

It is by choice I linger here.

But could I hold both sea and sky together?

No, not for long.

Or as truth, once known, no longer follows faith.

I could not, if I would, lie to myself or be unaware of the permanence of things.

It is a choice short-lived, no need for chart or compass for this short journey.

The fog will lift and all will find its rightful place.

The sensible laws of nature will bring me back to a world that I know and love.

Still, I would like to visit once again, if only for a moment on this tranquil sea, again to dream, to catch a glimpse of what might be.

Well, I've been trapping a good part of my life.

I trapped when I was a kid.

I didn't do a whole lot, but I did some.

And later on in my year when I went out to Oregon and Washington State, I trapped out there as well.

Different animals, but pretty much the same.

And so when I came back here, I trapped too.

When you're a muskrat and you go down in these marshes, you walk down miles down and you find these long ditches and these muskrats frequent these ditches and run down.

A muskrat is heavy.

He doesn't like to get out and walk.

He rather slides on the mud and that's how he navigates.

And he can go real fast just sliding like on a sled.

And so you put your traps in those little ditches and they'll run right through 'em.

They see 'em, but it's too much trouble to get up and walk around them.

They try to go through 'em and then they get caught.

And so that's what muskratting amounts to.

But what I'm writing about is that I'm coming up from trapping.

There's snow on the ground, so winter time, it's very cold.

And I looked up at the houses and the sun is just coming up and shining on their windows.

And it goes, I wonder if anyone is watching from those distant houses or are they all asleep?

Unaware the sun has set their windows all on fire.

Some old man with his glasses, who remembers times he walked here years ago, thinks that he could tell me a thing or two if he only had the chance.

Some bird watcher with her book who thinks that I'm a hunter, God forbid that she should see these traps.

And well, there may be some businessman who built here to be near the water after dark.

Who wonders if I might be trespassing on his lane.

Dreamers dreaming their last minute dreams before Monday becomes a reality, before the weekend has worn off.

They won't see me walking here today.

And if they do, will no doubt think that I'm too busy to observe the beauty of the sunrise as they do between bites of eggs and coffee.

I wonder if behind those fiery windows, someone saw me stop to write my yellow initials in the snow.

I doubt it.

But I'd really like to know if someone watching wishes they were walking here with me and would like to tell me so.

Islanders are beautiful people.

If somebody house burns down in a matter of hours, they have thousands of dollars given them.

That's the way they work, that's the way they operate.

When my dad went in the hospital, he was in Salisbury.

Right beside him was this surgeon.

He was in the hospital for the same type of thing.

And they came in with a mail.

And my dad had all these envelopes and he's opening all these envelopes and he's got this big pile of money.

And this doctor's sitting there looking at him, he said, Mr. Crockett, are you some kind of celebrity?

He said, (chuckles) no.

He said, these are my friends.

He said, and I love them and they love me.

That's the way we do things.

And this happened the whole time he was there and the guy couldn't get over it.

And all the men would come from Tangier, the young men would come to the hospital to see him.

And it was a constant in and out and they couldn't believe, you know, the way the comradeship they had with each other.

I remember, and during World War II, I remember when the war was over.

And the way they handled that was so beautiful.

And the way they treat people during those times was so beautiful.

The soldiers, when they would come home, they'd come home and they were just frail little soldiers.

And they looked, and some of 'em had been prisoners of war.

And they were only 70 or 80 pound.

They looked, they were just emaciated.

And they had been fattened up a little bit before they let 'em come home.

And they came home and when they came, when the boat first came in the creek, the church bell would begin ringing and it would ring and ring and ring.

That was the first thing they would hear.

And then the harbor was covered in boats.

All of the boats would line the harbor and welcome them home, and that bell would keep on ringing.

And all of the islands people would come up to the dock to meet these men, you know, and they would, you know, it would be beautiful when they get off the boat, they'd kiss the ground and that bell would ring and ring and not stop ringing until he was home in his own house.

And what a welcome that was, you know, that was a beautiful custom.

And also when anybody died on that island, they would have, and they would ring a single stroke.

They would ring a, dong.

Dong, just one every half a minute or so.

And just so everybody would know, this guy had being buried today, and memories of it.

It was a beautiful things they did.

I am the bell.

My clear iron voice covers this island.

Everyone listens and their tiny world stands still.

I am the echo of their joys.

A mirror of their soul, a symbol of their hopes and of their dreams.

My voice is not my own.

I am but a single sound, a single note.

I have no words to give them.

Mine is the voice they hear when speaking to themselves.

I am the voice of God within them, calling them to what matters and what matters most.

I call to them in times of need, in times of trouble.

And they come whenever I call.

I announce the times of fellowship, where together and as one, they learn to reach above and within themselves to touch a God made flesh, to dwell among them.

I am the bell.

My voice was first to mark the end of wars.

I rang and rang for hours across the amber marshes till all had heard the news.

The war is over, the war is over.

Wives and children, mothers and fathers, relatives and friends, they all embraced each other in thanksgiving and praise, they laughed and cried and danced in the dusty streets.

I welcomed home the soldiers, crowded the docks with friends and lined the creek with boats of men who left their work to welcome this best friend back home.

My steeple was the first they saw on their approach, my voice the first they heard.

Frail heroes heard my voice and wept and stepping from the boat into the arms of those they loved and those who loved him most.

Brave soldiers knelt to kiss the ground of this, their island home.

That oft they wondered that they would ever see again.

I followed the joyful procession through the narrow streets.

My voice sang out with theirs until the soldier was at last safe home.

Below me in this churchyard, etched in stone, are the names of those who gave their lives for us.

I toll for them, lest we forget, we will not forget.

I lend my voice in sadness to the passing of each friend and single measured strokes adding to this finality of death, the infinite voice of a merciful God.

I am the bell.

They synchronize their watches, as their soul to my voice.

I am the friend and I am waiting.

And for each one I toll.

(emotional music) When I was very young, before I was a teenager, mainly, you know, I spent all my time in those minnow ditches and shoving little boats and catching crabs and minnows and so on.

I remember myself, looking at myself in the reflection in the water.

And then as I now looking at it back, I look at it from the standpoint of an old man looking back on that same reflection of the same kid, you know, and how it's a part of his life.

And so you never outgrow that kid.

That's the basic idea.

I saw myself in minnow ditches on the surface of the tide, looking down to someone who was looking up at me.

And I guess I'll always be there.

No matter what success or failure faiths may bring, I'll be linked to those green waters, to a sunburned face and the salty beginnings of my youth.

I was so trusting to the ebbing tide, a forever child, looking to see if my reflection would predict some future on the flood.

Now I'm older, but still reaching for myself.

And the broken image of my face keeps smiling through the ebbing and the flowing of the years.

Narcissus' child, always laughing, but never mocking me.

We've always been together, always reaching for each other, the forever child and me.

(seagulls squawking)