Boatman’s Prayer

Last night I was sitting around the dinner table drinking a beer with Brian, one of the swampers (a swamper being a guy who helps out on the trip and just does whatever is needed, from setting up the groove box to washing the dishes in the chickie pails). We’d both been watching Arlo as he moved around the camp like a nervous expecting father.

“Have you ever really looked at Arlo?” Brian said. “He has Tina Turner’s legs and Prince’s face.”

Well, I didn’t even know how to respond to that so I said nothing, just sipped my beer. But I think I know what he meant. Arlo is an odd bird. No one quite knows what to make of him. He’s always smiling, always laughing, yet he’s got this dark side to him. One night we were sitting around, swapping stories, and Arlo told me how his dad was an old river runner so I started asking him questions about him. One minute Arlo would make him sound like the greatest dad in the world and the next minute it sounded like he hated him. It was hard to tell where their relationship stood at the moment.

Arlo said, “One day, I was being a real ass to him and he just looked at me in disgust and said, ‘Days like this, I wish I’d worn a condom.’”

Arlo’s dry bag is filled with books, mostly about the geology of the river and stuff on John Wesley Powell but also some cowboy poetry books. His favorite seems to be a book called Raging River, Lonely Trail: Tales Told by the Campfire’s Glow by Vaugh Short, an old swamper out Arizona known as “the poet laureate of the Grand Canyon.”

After dinner, Arlo likes to have a beer or two and eventually he’ll read something from Short’s book, usually in a very melancholy fashion. Last night he read us “Boatman’s Prayer”:

Dear Lord here on this river bank

Before we launch today

Please listen for a moment

To what a boatman has to say

Now I don’t claim to be a saint

And my souls not lily white

Sometimes I yield to temptation

Sometimes I drink too much at night

Down here I’m not an angel

Don’t even want to talk about the town

With all its woes and pitfalls

And the things that get you down

So I’m really in no position

To ask for much from you

But if you could see the way

Please try and hear me through

Life down here’s a pleasure

And there’s beauty everywhere

So I’m really not complaining

In my humble little prayer

The thing I’m trying to get across

In my stublin’ bumblin’ way

Is a boatman he’s not really bad

No matter what they say

But a boatman’s life’s not easy

Although I’m not trying to alibi

There’s no turning back up river

There’s no use to even try

Whatever lies before you

You’ve got to see it through

You can’t stop half way

And back off and start anew

Its just things aren’t as easy

As they look to those outside

It’s more than jumping in a boat

And going for a ride

Now I’m not too worried

About what’s down the way

‘Cause I’ve done this many times before

When I didn’t even pray

Oh! I don’t take it lightly!

I’ve always got to know

There’s an old lion a roarin’

In the river down below

But we’ll make it through the rapids

There’ll be no problem there

That’s really not the reason

For me to say this prayer

The reason I’m a talkin’

and it’s not easy for me to say

Just please don’t view us boatmen

In the ordinary way

I love this world you made us

And I love the rivers too

I like the things that are simple

And I like the work I do

But could you sort of look the other way

And a few small things forgive?

For it’s a little different

This kind of life I live

I have no neighbors watching

To see what I do each day

So it’s just a little easier

To stray off the narrow way

Now I have no church to go to

They just aren’t built down here

But I see your walls and canyons

And I feel you very near

Now I’m standing here a rattlin’

I’ve talked for quite a spell

I still can’t seem to get across

What I’m tryin’ to tell

It’s just please try to overlook

Some of the things I do

I may not be like your other children

But I feel very close to you

Amen