dichroic | background for the poll in the next entry

If Eugene Field Could Row, or Thomas Eakins Could Write

The weather forecast said drizzly and grey
A foul sort of day for a row.
But regattas are looming and I need to train,
So there was no choice but to go.

The boathouse was lively, the docks both were full
(The Dutch pay small heed to the rain)
I took off my coat, and carried my oars
And prepared to go out once again.

My slender light single was ready, as ever
Eager to taste of the spray.
And so we set out on the water this morning
Expecting small joy from the day.

But the wind wasn’t bad on the sheltered canal,
And the air not as cold as I’d thought,
And as I looked around to avoid other boats,
There was Spring in the glimpses I caught.

The grasses and leaves were beginning to show
A green haze behind winter trees
There in the distance were dogwoods in bloom,
And new life in the scent on the breeze.

I’m slow on the uptake, but even I grasp
What a privileged and glorious thing
It is to be here and able to row
On a Holland canal in the Spring!

Rudder doesn't actually read poetry much, or any of the things I write, but every once in a while I like to show him something. It's not that I think this is my best, or even my best this year, but this is one I thought he's connect with, and he did. (He was on the water that day, too.) He usually comes up with something that surprises me, one advantage to being married to someone whose mind works differently than yours. That was the start of the rhythm questions above.

One thing I think a little odd is that the rhythm I most commonly fall into is (mostly-)imabic tetrameter, not pentameter. No idea why, and in fact I think in my middle school days when I was regularly assigned to write an essay or poem (that was the Communications class I took in the Gifted program one year) I did usually end up with pentameter. Maybe I've become (very) slightly more terse in my age. Though actually the poem above alternates four feet per line with three, and I do like that variation. (It was the varying stress within feet in the second stanza that Rudder commented on, not the number of feet itself. He was also careful to comment on the things he liked first. He's learning.)

I figured out what the last verse reminds me of, while we were talking - not Kipling but certainly influenced by him:

But still the lacy Towers of Truth
Sing Beauty's madrigal,
And she herself will ever dwell
Along the Grand Canal!

The Grand Canal on Mars, that is, not the one in Venice. I guess now I know where the rhythm scheme came from. Stealing from a blind man, how crass.

So that got me thinking about the possibilities of rowing in a science-fictional context. The problems are that in most cases, it just wouldn't be possible without some sort of environment suit, and it's difficult to imagine working out in one. I mean, a human could row on a mercury lake (just don't tip over!) but not on a methane one, without protection. I suppose one possibility would be to vary the boat more: you could have a pressure-tight roofed vessel with some sort of seal around the oarlock, for example. You could conceivably navigate in a low-gravity milieu off the ground, with large but lightweight blades to waft you along - flapping, in other words. But you'd have to either adapt the rowing stroke or add some funky joints to make the motion lift as well as thrust. Ditto under the surface in a liquid environment. Docking would certainly be tricky - an airlock would have to be much wider to accomodate oars than the boat would otherwise require. Hmm. Why you'd do it I don't know, but there are always the same sort of reasons I do here. Just as soon as I figure out what those are.