SOMETIMES IT TAKES A POET

To properly express the dark side of progress

That poet is a soft-spoken and tenacious friend discovered upon arrival to a new port, as so many others have been. Good people bring joy, and there are many in our neighborhood here.

If I’ve learned anything rebuilding STEADFAST, it’s that the world will never be done SPARRING WITH MOTHER NATURE in terms of the constant deterioration and degradation of nature’s materials, including this body of mine. Today’s poet does not seem to age. Ken Asplen has lived in Cambridge, Maryland all of his eighty years with the exception of the six he gave to serve in the United States Navy, mostly underneath the surface of the world’s oceans. Week after week he presents thoughtful, impactful work to Choptank Writers, our local word art group. His passion for the water, his family heritage of boatbuilding, and his incredible poetic ability have endeared him to many. I have only scratched the surface of his raft of knowledge, absorbed over a lifetime that has seen incredible change, questionable progress.

The volatile waters of United State’s Chesapeake Bay, bordering modern-day states Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC and Delaware has carried and subdued all manner of vessels for millennium. English explorers arrived in the late 1500s and surprisingly kept the indigenous Chesepiooc name, changing only the spelling. The natives understood the treasures and dangers beneath (and on top of) the waves. Far before the history that we portray, these fertile waters were plied with canoes and other Native American inventions for hunting, gathering and transport. It is arrogant to think or express that European boats were the first to see these shores and subsequently run aground on oyster beds so prevalent as to be nearly inconceivable.

It’s hard to guess at or preserve deep history when Mother Nature is constantly calling the artifacts back to the earth; most of the vessels you’ll learn about here were simply left to rot away in shallow swamps and creeks, as you’ll see depicted in Ken’s poems.

LADY MARYLAND, a 34M Pungy, was replicated by the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, who gets photo credit. There are NO originals in existence.

I’ll touch bases on the history that we are more comfortable with, the sail-powered vessels of the last two centuries or so, hundreds of which choked the mighty rivers when it was discovered how wonderful and sustaining (and an aphrodisiac?) those oysters were, how plentiful the Blue Crabs, how healthy the fish populations, how perfectly balanced the ecosystem, so much so that even the land was rich loam allowing farmers to produce long-season crops and tobacco in fine fashion to be transported to population centers. Washington, DC, Philadelphia and New York all possessed a lust for the easy-to-capture residents of the region, and the hunters developed more and more efficient ways to dredge them.

My arrival here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland called to attention my ignorance of this once-plentiful, then polluted, over-harvested and abused, now perhaps rejuvenating but still-very-much-endangered portion of the East Coast of America. The workboats here, all originally sail, are like few elsewhere, low draft, big cargo, easily maneuvered, and designed to haul an impressive amount of weight. If you’re intrigued, there are wonderful museums and a few old-school, prideful Watermen left to tell the stories. I included a couple links below so you can meet them, in case you missed those posts from 2024. I would tell you to seek them out, but they don’t take too kindly to strangers…

These vessels filled Baltimore Harbor, hauling goods from as far as Bermuda. Wikipedia.

The original vessels, hand built with old-growth long leaf yellow pine by the thousands (just as STEADFAST was), go by names you’ve probably never heard: Pungy (1850s none remain), Bugeye (one remaining, 1889) and Skipjack (less than twenty remain). Designs changed both when a better, faster idea came along and when the forest became bereft of the large foundational logs required. Most importantly for today’s publication, they’re poetry-worthy. With his permission I am sharing these works; Ken’s ability to rhyme is prolific and extraordinary indeed.

Bugeye Blues

by Ken Asplen

Tend my lines to the ebb tide, let my wings flutter dry in the breeze,

Dock scratch my ribs, mud rest my back and I’ll settle to take my ease.

The day’s been long, at work before dawn, with little on which to borrow.

Cull out the catch and get some rest, we’re back on the rock tomorrow.

Blow you winds of autumn, cast my lines and set sails for the edge.

Born we are to work the harness of the deadly iron-toothed dredge.

The fleet will weigh before sun-up, so no chance we’ll be workin’ alone,

But if we hit our marks and lick rock quick, we’ll sure haul crusties home.

The life we know can’t last much longer, oysters are givin’ out too fast.

Powerboats will soon take over, and our kind will just melt to the past.

The best of us can turn to power, the rest may find cheap freight to haul.

We ruled the bay for decades, but in a few more, none will be left at all.

My skin is planks of knotless pine, my bones, the finest oak to be found,

But all the old growth trees are gone, so there’s no way to keep me sound.

When work calls and I can’t answer, I’ll understand repairs are too high,

Just strip all my useful gear, tow me to some quiet cove, and let me die.

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Skipjack races, some of which are replicas, are a popular summer attraction.

Death of a Wooden Workhorse (A Skipjack’s Lament)

by Ken Asplen

I’ve captured my last fresh breeze,

Sliced my last taste of salty foam.

Robbed, abandoned to take my ease

And moored to the marsh alone.

I’m where most of my kin have gone.

We’ve out-lived our usefulness

Like the old trees that made us strong

Replaced by farmed renewableness.

I feel each tide wash through my skin,

Once flawless pine swollen tight,

Now rent where the worms chewed in

To appease their ravenous appetite.

My rotting ribs feel the eagerness

Of tiny teeth hollowing me to dust,

But nothing pains like the uselessness

Remembering the past that once was us.

I wonder when memories finally die.

Must I wait til my bones are dirt?

Or, will they fade from neglect as I,

And lessen, by degrees, the hurt?

Skipjack replica NATHAN OF DORCHESTER offers guests a piece of the past.

Now, the vessels that ply the Bay are motorized and plastic like the ones below. I have fresh perspective after saving my wooden girl. I think I see both sides of ‘progress’.

Until next week, thanks as always for staying aboard & examining yet another spar. ~J

I know you want to learn more about our Watermen! It took a year or two, but they opened up, let me aboard and told story after story after story. They still do.

WE DO WHAT WE HAVE TO DO

I’LL QUIT WHEN I’M EIGHTY. THAT’LL BE ENOUGH.

***update, he’s crabbing this season at 81.

Enjoy these people pulling a life out of the water, and there’s more in my archives…search Watermen. Also, hit that darn little heart and re-stack this publication to send this poet out into the world. Oh, and me, too. I want to go. You know I do. Make it happen.

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