The Lower Chesapeake Bay

[y66]

The Lower Chesapeake Bay

 

by Maxine Kumin

 

Whatever happened to the cross-chest carry,

the head carry, the hair carry,

 

the tired-swimmer-put-your-hands-on-my-shoulders-

and-look-in-my-eyes retrieval, and what

 

became of the stride jump when you leap

from impossible heights and land with your head

 

above water so that you never lose sight

of your drowning person, or if he is close enough, where

 

is the lifesaver ring attached to a rope

you can hurl at your quarry, then haul

 

him to safety, or as a last resort

where is the dock onto which you tug

 

the unconscious soul, place him facedown,

clear his mouth, straddle his legs and press

 

with your hands on both sides of his rib cage

to the rhythm of out goes the bad air in

 

comes the good and pray he will breathe,

hallowed methods we practiced over and over

 

the summer I turned eighteen to win

my Water Safety Instructor's badge

 

and where is the boy from Ephrata, PA

I made out with night after night in the lee

 

of the rotting boathouse at a small dank camp

on the lower Chesapeake Bay?

 

from Where I Live. ©W.W. Norton and Company, 2010

[kenberg]

I have often reflected on my lack of emotional attachment to the Chesapeake. It's a tremendous body of water with great historical significance. It has pirate history, it had "oyster wars" and so on. I definitely find it of interest but I lack the emotional attachment and I don't see that I can do anything about that. I grew up near the Mississippi and I still have a great attachment to it. It's not that I am an expert on its history, I am not. But it flooded in the spring and my friends and I would bike down and explore. I water skied on the Minnesota, which flows into the Mississippi. I (crazily) waded into it once because I wanted to go swimming and the lakes were still frozen over. There are caves in the cliffs along the shoreline that we explored. Minnehaha Creek flows over Minnehaha Falls and then into the Mississippi. We often biked there, and I am happy to say that Becky, who had never been to Minnesota before marrying me, took an immediate liking to the place. We spent a few hours there a few weeks ago on a trip.

 

So my attachment to the Mississippi is automatic, my attachment to the Chesapeake is learned and relatively unemotional. A common experience, with varied locales, for many people I suppose. I found the poem moving.