These steady lake waves come near
like a dog teasing with a stick –
roll up to our pedals, retreat,
roll, retreat, while we crash with
nubby tires down the thin
spine of beach,
the heaving water to the east
a balm, a coolant, a passage, a lifter-up,
a dragger-down, a dark and silent grave.
It’s all just rearranged drops
of hydrogen and oxygen
strained through the gaps in the history of the world,
Bubbling through the biology of the dead and the not yet dead:
Aristotle’s sweat, Marie Curie’s tears, the blood
of Chief Oshkosh and Queen Marinette
and the nameless millions of immigrants
who gathered their kids and their histories and
set afloat and washed up somewhere else –
if they are lucky, this place,
where the x, y, z axes of
clouds and sky,
sand and wood,
water and waves
come together like a corner miracle,
holding us in place
while the waves crash around us
again, again, and again,
saying nothing but
here, here, here.
Here you are.
Here you are.
Here.
Halfway North 