of seasons and currents and the road and the congregation of the river

“[N]o matter how often I return to the river for work, connection, solace, and baptism, I will have to also push myself out into the world.” 

– from “The River Possum meditates on the life of that perfect pipe wrench for a particular use” October 6th, 2026

 

En masse mayflies are a nuisance; but this was the last one of the season and I let him have his day, like I get to have mine.

The last few nights on the river have been damn near picturesque. It’s a funny thing, really. No matter how much or often I look at the river from outside the starboard deck window by the firebox or off the fantail checking the wheel during a trip, or out one of the rear windows from the engine room, I don’t ever get tired of the view. The sunsets look like Autumn sunsets now, and the evening air is cool enough to need a jacket.  I don’t take as many pictures as I used to, but that’s mostly because I want to remember these moments for myself; I carve them into my memory the way someone makes a woodblock print. Sometimes I catch small moments and things that people tend to miss or tend to overlook. I found a dead dragonfly the other day. Well, it was almost dead. I think I saw its final wing shudder. It was standing on the wharf next to the Belle like it was standing guard. I didn’t have my phone with me, so I asked Jonah, one of the deckhands, to come over and take a picture for me. He’s one who appreciates the little oddities and didn’t even blink when I asked him to take a picture of a dead bug.

During that same trip, I found a single mayfly in the firebox; and I was a little surprised to find it still alive. I let it alone, except to move it off the bulkhead and onto the chunk of coal Kevin, one of the other engineering assistants, brought in to show the kids who have never seen coal in real life. The mayfly was not amused and eventually hopped down onto the work desk there on the starboard side. En masse mayflies are a nuisance; but this was the last one of the season and I let him have his day, like I get to have mine. 

I found a dead dragonfly the other day. Well, it was almost dead. I think I saw it’s final wing shudder. It was standing on the wharf next to the Belle like it was standing guard.

The Odd Librarian in My Head Chimes in

People whose opinions matter to me tell me that being on the river, working on a now 112 year old memory machine, has been good for my writing. They’re not wrong. Being on the road is good for my writing, too, but in a different way. And I think being at home is good for my writing too, if only because at some point a poet must reflect; and reflecting on anything is difficult to do en medias res, in the middle of things.  There’s something about being part of the congregation of the river that places a body both in motion and in a particular point in time and space. It’s sort of a pat statement to refer to the Belle of Louisville as “living history,” but the odd librarian in my head, that annoying linguistic precisionist, finds it lacking. I’ve stated it before, probably somewhere in one of these missives, but I’ll state it again. History is dead. The living part is what you learn, and the argument could be made that, in these, the falling days of Babylon, that history is doubly dead. Triple even. But that is probably too scary and depressing a thought, so we’ll leave it here. For now. 

More from the Odd Librarian in My Head

I’ve had to learn to accept what comes. This isn’t an easy lesson for me. I’ve never been one to simply accept anything. And it’s important to point out, and it will probably need repeating, that acceptance and capitulation are not the same thing. Accepting what comes means knowing the current and understanding what to do; it means smelling the rain, or the snow, or the lack thereof. Acceptance is about seeing the moment. But it does not necessarily mean staying in that moment. Moments shift. Seasons shift. Capitulation means surrendering to a moment and putting it in amber, the way people sometimes do to dead dragonflies. Capitulation is stagnant water with so little oxygen left that the fish asphyxiate for the absence. Acceptance means knowing you need to find fresh water, or die. 

It’s taken me a surprisingly long time and too many hard lessons to understand the difference. 

The other day when I got in my car to go to the river, I was rolling down the passenger side window for the cross breeze when I saw a grasshopper. It popped up on the ledge and then up on the edge of the window. I watched it for half a beat and gently suggested it head on out, I had to go work. Believe it or not, I’m not adverse to killing bugs. But it depends on the bug. Hornet, mud daubers, biting ants: yes. I even leave mosquitoes alone as long as they leave me alone. I’ll squash a cockroach without giving it a second thought, and except for the mud daubers, I generally say something like, “Be a Buddha.” We need all the help we can get. Grasshoppers, though, are cool. And sometimes they sing. This one, a bright green one, didn’t sing. But if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll hear him one evening sitting on the back porch.

 

[originally published: https://eymick.substack.com/p/the-river-possum-meditates-on-the-700]