Below the Wabasha Bridge a rock-lined narrows joins the main channel of the river with her backwater. The river is still high, and as water rushes through the passage it boils and swirls into whirlpools while it drops toward the green-choked backwater maze. Floating through the narrows I remember the threat of drowning the little Tongue River of North Dakota: “The current could take you down for good” they said.
Butch Thompson kindly contributed the score: a segment of the Bessie Smith tune Backwater Blues from his 1993 CD Lincoln Avenue Blues.
The river remains high, but it’s not the reason I have only been out on it twice this year. I’m nearly finished printing the engravings for The Bicycle Diaries, but I have 148 pages of text yet to print by summer’s end. Printing a book is not unlike being pulled in by the current: it’s sink or swim.