Braille

9
COM
chore'graphed reflections upon
water's fickle surface- beyond,
the sun becomes tie dyed wrinkles,
raised waves of sparkly Braille letters-
those seafaring, pointy setters
frontally scudding with the wind.
you would have understood me
had you waited my fingertips
to chafe your salty collection.

Black Hawk

9
COM
Last year, three days after purchasing my camera on credit I heard a whup, whup, whup noise outside my home. A very articulate UH-60 Black Hawk was hovering above our neighbors field.
I witnessed this army copter doing the limbo beneath blue skies, a little bit lower now.

When the Black Hawk lowered itself to the ground I was on my way to its landing site. Somewhere between my house and the landing site I became a one woman paparazzi without shoes armed with said camera. Frantically I looked for my target.

Two miles down the road I spotted thin layers of smoke rising from the asphalt. Broken tree limbs and leaves spattered the backroad. There between a small grove of trees I spotted Black Hawk and its occupants. Three or four recruits are searching an open field for... something.

1:44 pm. My drive by shoot is a success.

Riverwine

6
COM
my feet suck mud-
articulating sweet brown sugar
between my toes.
with each restless tabla (drum)
my feet release night's keepsake-
crushed brown grapes
churned into riverwine-
somewhere between black faith
and green, that dangerous hour,
that bruises a molasses wind.

John Beatty's Navy

13
COM

Curiosity finds my outturned feet spitting across creosoted railroad tracks with my daughter close behind. We come to a spot of flatlined green searching for a safe way down to the Ohio river from our side of the banks. We pull our bodies into shade while our eyes are drawn to a listing, half-sunken ship called John Beatty's Navy.


Story goes... an unnamed barge sank in 1992 just off Maysville's shore. In 1994 city of Maysville hired John Beatty, a riverboat captain, from Warsaw to raise the barge. He used two old Navy minesweepers that were hooked together by beam, cradling a crane. His efforts were lost to river mud. The towboat Clare Beatty damaged her engines pulling the minesweepers free. One minesweeper now rests belly up like a beached whale.


The Hercules barge and crane succeeded in pulling original barge free only to have its crane break as the barge broke surface. Hercules now partially pins the barge it was meant to save.


The western shore of Maysville is now known as the Bermuda Triangle of the Ohio River. To some this may be a river junkyard but on this sunny, Sunday afternoon it's a chance for mother and daughter to scavenge the shoreline while taking in a bit of history.

Credit:
"Proud armada rusts in river's graveyard" Monica Dias, Cincinnati Post, 9/16/98

Researching John Beatty's Navy I found that the Clare E. Beatty tugboat was originally called Semet-Solvay (1940) and renamed Semet (1947). In 1971 she was renamed Clare E. Beatty and sank in 2000.

Small Town Snapshot Sunday