Even the Ohio Can Change

Rick Campbell

The river I grew up on was rank 

 with oil. Shoreline stones 

 gleamed slick-blue and nothing 

 in the river was worth a slug 

 of scrap metal: carp and catfish, 

 sick, riddled with chemical blood. 

My river was for barges, 

 owned by US Steel, ARMCO, J&L. 

 They pumped it full of slag, 

 dripped and drained oil and gas 

 through a thousand hidden holes. 

Nothing good could come of it 

 except a living and life, 

 a whole valley's clinging dream. 

 The Indians who named it beautiful river 

 weren't wrong; how could they know 

 what would come, dark and sooty, 

 burning the sky, turning the earth 

 to mud and cinder. 

Even in our terrible need 

 we couldn't kill it and the river 

 is coming back to river once again. 

 In the cold ruin of the Ohio's banks 

 muskies swim the secret paths below. 

We grow older, the river younger,

 and great fish smash into the air

 to swallow a caterpillar

 fallen from a willow branch.