Little Splat
A poem I wrote today …
Little Splat
silent and still and slow,
very slow
is this what it is like to die?
silent and still and slow,
very slow?
I am here for joy
for the joy of emerald water
pouring and twisting among grey boulders
churning over drops and plunging into holes and piling up in frothy mounds
for the joy of the dance
pas de deux, me and the river
lean, glissade, pirouette
for the joy of comradeship
eight days and eight of us, two thousand miles of road and sixty miles of stream
paddling and paddling some more, talking paddling and dreaming paddling
for the joy of the adventure
Zoom Flume and First Island, Little Splat and Wonder Falls, Wonder Falls!
launching boat and body over the lip of eighteen-foot Wonder Falls, exult!
and now,
silent and still and slow,
very slow
not able to breathe, but able to see
seeing only the subaqueous darkness
not able to move, but able to feel
feeling canoe and me stuck, stuck between rocks, between foot pegs and saddle
able to think, but silent and still and slow,
very slow
no panic, no terror, no dread, no self-pity, no despair, no regret
only silence and stillness and slowness
and watching, watching myself, watching myself from outside myself
and wondering, wondering, wondering
is this what it is like to die?
I try again to move
and I am out
there will be no dying today
no second-guessing or rueing or wishing myself somewhere else
because I am here
because I am here
because I am here for joy!
Timothy Ensworth
(In April 1991, I traveled to West Virginia with seven other members of the Maine Appalachian Mountain Club whitewater canoeing group. Along the way, we paddled the Indian and Hudson rivers in New York, and Stony Brook and Dark Shade and Shade Creeks in Pennsylvania. In West Virginia, we ran the Shavers Fork of the Cheat, the Middle Fork of the Tygart and Tygart Gorge, the Upper and Lower Big Sandy River, and the Cheat River. This poem comes from my descent of the Lower Big Sandy and a capsize at Little Splat.)