Manistique in March

We walk along the beach against a whipping wind that coils my hair around my face, twisting against the restraints of my hood until it flies free in the fray. 

A relentless roil pushes the heavy glass of frozen waves until they smash and break, piling in fractured heaps along the beach.

Fragments of ice fringe the shoreline, a chaos of crystals refracting the rays of light brave enough to escape the caliginous clouds.

Cold bites at gloved hands as we watch a crimson lighthouse emerge from the gray, a monolith rising solid against the lake's tempestuous fury.

And I feel the lake. Her nature heaving, gyrating, releasing, reclaiming everything she is, leaving all her heaviness in the sand.

March 23, 2023

Laurel 

Moon Over Borah

Moon Over Borah

     Photo credit: Willy Braun

It's the way light 

caresses her crags 

sketches shadows 

in charcoal runs 

that disappear in a cluster

of scattered pine. 

The way caliginous clouds 

shroud her apex, 

virga drifting off the skirts 

of the storm. 

She stands watch 

as coils of wind devils

chase a lone pronghorn 

through a tract of sage

where Indian paintbrush blooms pink 

and purple lupine 

sway to the echo 

of thunder rumbling 

down the canyons 

of Lost River Range. 

And always,

it's the way Moon 

rests in her saddle, 

his face glowing soft 

against the climax 

of her summit. 

Laurel

May 28, 2025

Fragile Things

The mountain

does not apologize

for being made of stone.

It rises dark and certain,

keeping the old language

of pressure and fire 

beneath its skin.

Still, the columbines come.

Pale as moonlight,

tender as an open hand,

they gather at the edge

of everything unforgiving

and bloom.

Not because Earth

has been gentle.

Not because Wind

forgot how to wound.

They bloom where cracks 

in the stone remind roots 

what they came here to do.

Perhaps strength

was never meant

to look like a mountain.

Perhaps it is this:

a fragile thing

holding fast

to a narrow place,

turning its soft face

toward the sun. 

August 23, 2026

Photo credit to unknown Instagram photographer with apologies for not catching their name.