Blessed by a river's bounty

By shallow rivers, to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals.

Matthew Arnold

What is it about living on the banks of a river that makes me feel like the recipient of unending gifts? Let me count the ways.

The Penobscot has always been the great working river of the state of Maine. From its earliest days as a highway for its namesake Indians, to the massive log drives which persisted into the 1970s, to the paper mills riveted here and there along its banks, the Penobscot has long known the hand of humankind.

When this river is high and raging during spring runoff, it is a sight to behold - a living body of water in a hurry to make it to the sea. But now, as we approach high summer, the Penobscot has slowed its pace and, in this time of little rain, dramatically lowered its level to the point where, when I set out in my canoe, I can see bottom from one bank to the other. This is a boon for me. I derive a great deal of pleasure from acknowledging the ways in which the river, slung low, presents me with rewards beyond its natural beauty.

When the Penobscot runs shallow, it reveals odds and ends and artifacts from its association with human industry. A few years back, during an earlier period of drought, I was out in the canoe, plying my way around the shallow water when there, on the sandy bottom, I spotted a perfectly preserved clay pipe.

I retrieved it and had it identified by an archaeologist who told me it had been manufactured in Glasgow, Scotland, just before World War l. How it got to the Penobscot, I'll never know. It now sits snug in my home as a conversation piece.

On the more practical side, a working river with a history as long as the Penobscot's has taught me that there are few building materials one needs to buy when one is resident on its banks.

I had long been frustrated with the muddy slurry my driveway became after a downpour, and the Penobscot offered up a mountain of slate. Who knows when or by whom it was deposited there. I never move down my slate walkway without sensing that I am treading on old river bottom.

When I priced finished block for a retaining wall I needed to build, I was astonished by what it would cost. Turning to the river again, I paddled over to the collapsed pilings of a railroad bridge that had washed out long ago. It took me 45 trips in the canoe, but block-by-block I moved the granite to my shore, and there it stands - a black-and-white specked wall of which Robert Frost would approve.

After the Penobscot completes its spring surge and settles back down again, it invariably strands various lengths of lovely, water-and-sun-washed timber along its banks. What can't be turned into an elegant shelf or piece of furniture is perfect for burning in the woodstove - long after the river has frozen over and winter is pushing in against the house.

Sometimes the largess is monumental. Just last week I nudged a 20-foot length of 4-by-6 alongside my canoe for a mile before shoving it ashore and then dragging it up the steep bank. It now forms the most unusual shrub border in town, courtesy of Maine's premier river.

From cobbles to old steel spikes to ancient pop bottles, the beat goes on. It is a harvest seeded not by me, but by my long-ago predecessors, from a time when the river was not only a conduit, but a depository.

Today, thankfully, the law prohibits the dumping of masonry, wood, and metal into the river. And I feel that the Penobscot, in periodically revealing these gleanings, is paying me in kind for cleaning it up a bit, for taking back what it had never asked for in the first place.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, I will set out in the canoe and noodle around in an old brick pile on the banks of the riverine island behind my house. There are some beauties there, and in exchange for their removal, the Penobscot will reward me with a walkway to my dooryard. Living on a river has perks of which poets have yet to speak.