The Rise

The Rise by Wendell Berry (2019)

In “The Rise,” the narrator and a companion launch a canoe into the Kentucky River at the mouth of Drennon Creek during a winter flood. The risen water has transformed the familiar landscape: a path that normally leads elsewhere now provides an easy entry to the river, fields become lagoons, drains become canals, and shore trees stand partly submerged in the current. Their canoe at first drifts upstream in an eddy, then enters the main channel, where the swift flood immediately demands alertness and hard paddling. The narrator reflects that a flooded river is not a single simple current but a braided confusion of currents, eddies, crossflows, drift, and submerged hazards. The canoe must be kept between the partly submerged shore trees and the mass of floating debris in the channel. As the travelers become accustomed to the danger, the boat comes to feel like an extension of themselves, allowing them to experience the river’s force with exhilaration as well as fear. On a gray, cold Sunday in December, they move through a world dominated by water, wind, and the sounds of trees and currents. From the canoe, the river’s speed seems less striking than its immense volume and power. The narrator recalls an earlier experience of being unable to resist a swift current while pulling an overturned rowboat, and considers the river’s frightening independence from human needs. It can be used and traveled upon, but it is not subject to human will; a mistake or drowning would scarcely disturb its surface. Memories and stories of drownings deepen the river’s menace: a man who capsized in winter and was carried downstream crying in the dark, listeners in riverside houses uncertain what they heard, and the grim practice of dragging for bodies. Yet the river also inspires fascination and reckless testing, as in stories of men attempting to cross it underwater with an iron kettle or walk on its surface with jugs tied to their feet. The narrator sees in the flood a grandeur, mystery, and horror akin to natural forces beyond control. The river’s wildness is especially audible where currents strike trees, pour over branches, and rattle submerged wood, while the middle of the channel possesses a deep, forceful silence. The travelers pass a fisherman working among his nets in quieter water, whose familiarity with the flood makes it seem like ordinary country. They also see birds feeding confidently in drift: cardinals, chickadees, and titmice find food in the debris, and their bright presence offers warmth in the cold scene. Because the flood has lifted the canoe above the usual riverbanks, the travelers can look across cornfields, winter grain, woods, hollows, houses, and farm buildings. The narrator reflects that the country once faced the river but now faces the roads. An abandoned river house, repeatedly invaded by floods and difficult to reach from the road, stands as evidence of that change. The valley, with crops gathered and people turned away, seems temporarily wild again, inhabited by red-tailed hawks and other creatures. Seeking relief from the strongest currents, the canoe enters quieter flooded water near the shore. The travelers flush a lone bobwhite from a brush pile and then see hunters approaching. The narrator condemns their costly, deliberate pursuit of small creatures they do not care to know alive, comparing their satisfaction in killing to the larger human habit of valuing death. He prefers the peaceful encounter with the bird as part of the living country. They continue past cattle calmly grazing and drinking beside the flooded pasture, mallards feeding in submerged corn rows, and a landscape newly rich in sheltered coves and food for ducks. The rise creates a shifting boundary between water and land, enlarging the domains of birds and fish while driving land animals upward. It carries away natural debris but also human garbage: cans, bottles, household waste, sewage, pesticides, and industrial contaminants. Passing a house whose backyard spills trash down to the river, the narrator observes that the river cannot harmlessly absorb all that people dump into it. He condemns the belief that the land and water remain inexhaustible, arguing that modern abundance has produced unprecedented ugliness and junk. Near the end of the journey, the cries of pileated woodpeckers carry across the bottoms. Their voices suggest the old large woods and a former wildness beyond the muddy flood, a wildness that will not return in history. As cold penetrates the travelers’ clothes, home comes into view. They angle across the currents, run the canoe’s bow onto the path leading up to the narrator’s house, and step onto land while the river continues past them without pause. Entering the warm living room, they feel estranged from ordinary life after having been so completely immersed in the river’s violent, indifferent world.

By Wendell Berry · First published 2019 · Genre: Nature Writing, Literary Nonfiction, Personal Essay · 5,284 words

First lines

WE PUT THE canoe in about six miles up the Kentucky River from my house. There, at the mouth of Drennon Creek, is a little colony of summer camps. We knew we could get down to the water there with some ease. And it proved easier than we expected. The river was up maybe twenty feet, and we found a path slating down the grassy slope in front of one of the cabins. It went right into the water, as perfect for launching the canoe and getting in as if it had been worn there by canoeists.

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poetry · lyric poetry · nature · rural life · farming · Kentucky · community · place · landscape · environmentalism · conservation · spirituality

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