[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.