CAULDRON
The Cuyahoga River fire––Cleveland, Ohio (1969)
It wasn’t the first time that this crooked river had burned,
a flaming Phlegathon roiling through the Cuyahoga Valley
like some great oil-slick serpent curling toward the lake––
nor would it be the last. Water with the insidious pulsebeat
of industry, drawing breath and stoking the fire I have touched
with my eyes. Here at the oxbow, like a horizontal comma,
Civil War transformed the land into a manufacturing basin:
American Ship Building, Sherwin-Williams Paint Company,
Republic Steel, and Standard Oil poured putrid into the valley
like a rosette ribbon as if this fiery degradation were a sign
of success. As we listened to flames lapping at the shore
for a century or more, buzzards circled in silent majesty.
Until a photograph misremembered that afternoon scorch,
a necessary falsification of the past. From flame upon flame
a phoenix emerged: The Environmental Protection Agency
and our toxic river baptizing the country’s first Earth Day.
NOTE: In 1970, National Geographic ran a story on the Cuyahoga River Fire. The accompanying photograph was from a more devastating fire almost 20 years earlier in 1952. Public outcry concerning pollution in the nation’s drinking water led to the establishment of The Environmental Protection Agency and the inaugural Earth Day in April, 1970.
Matthew Schultz teaches creative writing at Vassar College. He is the author of two novels: On Coventry and We, The Wanted. His recent poems appear in Fathom, Fahmidan, and Glitchwords. His poetry collection, Icaros, is forthcoming from ELJ Editions in May 2022.