A vast flat forest of pitch pines
A few straight roads cut out like lines
The rental man was very clear
Persuading us by using fear
The Oswego was much harder
We’d be alone in low water
The obstacles, the spiders, bees
The rocks and shoals and fallen trees
Some in plain sight and some submerged
The river’s current sometimes surged

We launched from the Oswego lake
The red/brown water was opaque
He took the bow and I the stern
His job propulsion, mine to turn
With oars in hand applying force
Every few moments changing course
The times we portaged the canoe
Were mercifully very few

Once trying to avoid a log
We flipped the canoe in a bog
And at that place we looked around
Where Eastern white cedars abound
We stopped to hear the river’s sound
No trace of humans could be found
We came upon a swamp of grass
One mile long and hard to pass
We hit an underwater tree
We spun around and then got free

After the bridge we stopped to rest
We were at mile six, we guessed
We walked the bridge, it had no rail
It was part of a dirt bike trail
And in the middle of our revel
We think we saw the Jersey Devil
A passed out creature, he looked dead
An empty bottle near his head

We spent four hours paddling
Enough water, we did not bring
A Jersey man gave us some gold
The bottled water was ice cold
We brought out some old beer can trash
I came home with a weird skin rash