The Good Earth

Little Bean River
Come back with me to a time
long gone
My ancestors walked this
Way
They came from the north and the
East
Following this river down
This river, my river
Gave them life; now
No one sees the water

My husband wrote this last semester as part of an assignment to write a poem in the style of the Chinese poetry they were studying in his Humanities class.

The Miami Indians called the St. Joseph River the “Little Bean River,” thus the title. When the Miami moved into this part of Indiana, they found the river that the French called the St. Joseph.

My husband's ancestors truly walked the banks of the St. Joseph and the banks of Cedar Creek. In the late 1930s, his grandfather was on a crew that built dams on the St. Joseph at Leo and Spencerville, as well as the dam at Cedarville on Cedar Creek.

The St. Joseph is ignored by most people despite its historical significance to this area. Ten thousand coaches cross the bridge on Coliseum Blvd. everyday, yet no one even looks at the river. The St. Joseph River is arguably the primary reason that Fort Wayne was settled; yet, Americans ignore their rivers, and their past.

His poem, “Little Bean River,” was inspired, in part, by “Passing Ti-en Men Street,” by Po chu-i. Po chu-I mentions mountains twice in the poem; the first reference is in line 1, when he names the mountain, and the second reference is contained in the last line when he says, mournfully, that no one looks at the mountains. This line is the line that inspired, partially, “Little Bean River.” When Po chu-I says “a thousand coaches, ten thousand horsemen pass,” my husband was reminded of the traffic on Coliseum when “not one man” will “turn his head and look at the river.”

We have two properties on the St. Joe River and spend a lot of time on it and by it. The "Boys Club," just north of Leo, is where we camp and canoe. And, yes, there is a boys club on the land. I'm allowed in but not allowed to decorate. "The Highlands," upriver near the Covered Bridge, is where we have our tree farm. A day at the Highlands is usually a day of hard work.