There are people who haven’t seen a Great Lakes lake freighter. Those who have no idea the pyramids of coal and iron ore it can disgorge from its vast holds. And others in that group who haven’t seen the inside of a metal foundry on a November night with its furnaces and heat. Iron and aluminum cast into shapes tended by workers in Kevlar chaps and steel-toed boots. Most of the same people have never seen a Massey Ferguson combine and have no idea how it harvests the rows of corn as high as an elephant’s eye or how much space to give it when driving behind one on a county road. There are no freighters, foundries, or combines where I am. It’s words and ideas that get forged, harvested, and shipped. Perhaps we need some furnaces to forge them, combines to harvest them, and ships to unload them to ports of call across the globe.
John Kropf
John Kropf is the author of three books. His most recent is A Midwestern Heart: Poems (Bottom Dog Press, 2024). Color Capital of the World: Growing Up with the Legacy of a Crayon Factory (University of Akron Press, 2022) was winner of Bowling Green State University’s 2023 prize for Local History. Kropf’s first book is Unknown Sands: Travels in the World’s Most Isolated Country (Dusty Spark, 2006). His writing has appeared in The Baltimore Sun, Florida Sun-Sentinel, The Washington Post, Middle West Review, The Great Lakes Review, and elsewhere.