Tag Archives: American prose

2024, Ohio River Valley Literature, prose, river life, Working Class Literature

from ‘the river north to South Point’ [And the congregation pushes on…]

11.03.24.1521 hrs

2nd cup of Coffee. 2 hrs 39 minutes until watch.

Standing on the back of the Broaddus, starboard, eating a bowl of Mate Matt Kemp’s made from scratch biscuits and gravy — the biscuit broken into pieces, the way a civilized person eats. We’re rolling northeast. The landscape  is hilly; we’re in the bottom of the Appalachian foothills. The sun is burning the last of the overnight chill out of my bones. The hum of the tug G Walker’s engines play in time with the sounds of our wake in a light breeze.

I know I am not one of the lords of the earth; but I am a happy river pebble being pushed along. These divine moments of peace are part of what makes this life the best I have ever lived.

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2024, essay, Ohio River Valley Literature, prose

from ‘the river north to South Point’

11.02.2024 / 1454 hrs

First cup of Coffee. Three hours until watch.

Crossed into Ohio / Ky part of the river. We’re just south of Cincinnati, the City on Seven Hills.

The heat went out on the boat, but the good guys on the tug topped off our water tank.

I both over thought and under thought this trip in terms of packing. I’ve been off the road so long I’ve forgotten what I’m like and what I will need… particularly base layers, not because it’s cold, especially, but because of exposure. I have plenty of layers, and I’m not worried. But I need to remember this.

For all the unromantic and unglamorous aspects of my job, the romantic in my core can not be denied. I love this job, this work, more by the day. Out here on the dirty sacred river, floating north to South Point, somewhere below Cincinnati, I am reexperiencing my home… my larger home… in a profound way. It’s all beautiful and terrible and lonesome and glorious, this congregation of the river.

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2024, essay

Love is its own redemption (a homily)

(on the occasion of Mike and Kaylyn’s wedding, 26 September 2024 / Fraziers Bottom, WV)

Love is its own redemption (a homily)

For Mike and Kaylyn on their wedding day, 26 September 2024 / Fraziers Bottom, WV

In an unpredictable world, the only thing worth getting out of bed for is love.

I’m thinking now of something our mutual friend, George Eklund, once told me. He told me that there’s someone for everyone; but he also pointed out that “the actual chances of meeting that person is astronomical.”

By any standard or definition, such an occurrence could be called a miracle; which it is. The miracle of two people finding once another in a world that seems designed to isolate us is worth waking up for; it’s worth putting on your boots for; it’s worth trudging through the world for.

Love redeems not only us, but it redeems the world and returns to it some of its divine glory.

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