the blue heron, the wrench, down and west off Big Savage Mountain
Saturday night on the river. The cruise ended up being a dockside event because of wind. People ask me all the time if we still cruise when it’s raining. They almost always seem surprised when I say “Yes, rain doesn’t keep us dockside. But the wind will.” A flat bottom sternwheel steamboat becomes a sail if there’s a cross wind above 20 miles per hour in the channel on the Ohio River. Our other boat, the Mary M. Miller, can manage because she has two screws, each turned by 425 horsepower straight six diesel engines attached to Cummins generators with copper rings about the same diameter of a large pizza. This past Saturday night in particular, the captains decided to make a go of it. It had been raining all day, the way it rains around here when Fall makes its proper appearance. One day it’s so hot you’re sweating in places you think time and the elements have forgotten; the next day, it rains, the leaves on the trees begin to actively let go and put on the end of summer fashion show, and there’s an ever so slight but brisk kiss in the wind. Saturday was that day. And I could tell by the white caps and the choppy waves on the river that I might get a call on the telegraph to go Astern Half on the boiler to give them more steam and more pull for getting the boat off the 4th Street Wharf. And that’s what happened. But even with all the steam I was giving them, even with all the steam the chief was giving them, the wind won out the day and we stayed dockside.
That’s the way it goes sometimes. And while there were still passengers who insisted on abusing the crew and food and beverage folks for things well outside their pay grade, the night went off as well as a last minute dockside event could go off. Stephen, the Night Chief, gave me and the other Engineering Assistant the option for one of us to go home. Dockside events only require a licensed engineer and a plus one to keep an eye on the boiler, the gen sets, whatever. I told Stephen I needed the hours, which was true. Kevin, who also has retirement income from a storied career at FedEx, went home.
Being on the water, being down on the 4th Street Wharf, the Space Between the Bridges, means being at once in a single place and in all places all at once; the Ohio River connects, in some fashion, everything to everything. I was moored, in a way, at the 4th Street Wharf. It was a necessary shipyard stop.
I get scheduled for roughly two cruises a week. I’m grateful to be back, but still very much aware of the reasons why I need to be back at all: namely, a year ago this month, my career was pulled out from under me. Sometimes I think I should approach this with all the focus and rage of a good old fashion revenge movie. One of those with all the blood and bile and drama of a Criterion Collection Kurosawa movie. In this situation, one should always ask, “What would Toshiro Mifune do?” Depending on whether you’re in Seven Samurai mode or Yohimbo mode, the reaction can vary. If you’re in Rashomon mode, you’re just getting blamed for all the shit you didn’t do because of the shit you actually did do that people choose to remember. I’m eight years sober, so my Drunken Angel era (I hope) is over. But generally I think it matters more to live in the moment I’m in and use what comes. That’s as close to tao as I manage to get.
I’ve made and continue to make good use of my time; doing what might be some of the best writing of my life. Tension is the wellspring for art. Even if it’s just the tension between the non-gel tip of a pen and the texture of the paper used. Tension is the invisible ingredient that turns craft into art; it’s Grandma’s finger in the cookie dough that makes the cookies taste better. And while my poetry has always existed in a state of tension, my last three collections of poetry: Growl & Mud, A Treatise on Unseen Stars, and The Call Sign is Jonah, exist as the end result of tension between poetry and working: first as a lot dog (event security for university sports at a university where I used to teach), then as a wharf dog and finally as a river possum. And right now, the tension from which my craft is hopefully becoming art is the tension of being the particular pipe wrench for that particular use.
Coming back from Frostburg, west and down Big Savage Mountain, I realized that no 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. Being on the water, being down on the 4th Street Wharf, the Space Between the Bridges, means being at once in a single place and in all places all at once; the Ohio River connects, in some fashion, everything to everything. I was moored, in a way, at the 4th Street Wharf. It was a necessary shipyard stop. I was able to get my first hip surgery. I found the blue heron and the giant cat fish. I met mermaids and drowned men and shadow walkers. And I learned about the world under the water. I was told the stories of great people and quiet people and true people. River folk are the keepers of stories, the living vaults of forgotten knowledge. Standing watch on the wharf in the winter is its own baptism, as is contending with the flood water. I was reborn and found a poetics of growls and mud that continues to speak and insist that the wind is calling. I don’t know what the coming year holds. I hope I get to be back on the river. I love the folks I work with, and I love a 112-year-old living memory steam machine.
Down and west, driving back on I-68, the concrete rode like wind thermal, taking me and Amanda home. The funny thing about thermals and wind currents is that while they’re generally predictable, conditions can make them shift, too. It’s important to be ready to shift with them. And so sometimes, I’m that perfect pipe wrench for that particular job. And sometimes, I’m the giant catfish, fighting upstream. And sometimes, I’m the blue heron.
[originally published on 10.7.26: https://eymick.substack.com/p/the-river-possum-meditates-on-the]
