A Poem to Commemorate the 20^th Anniversary of the Lake Huron Coastal Centre

Wade out, up to your waist—

stand where land and lake churn;

let the waves push, pull, jostle you.

Feel the sand—pulled by the current

from under your feet, whipped by the wind

through your hair. You are here

in the middle of a great hydraulics:

bluff, dune, beach, waves,

wind, sand bar, lake,

ceaselessly moving, changing,

exchanging, building up, eroding away. 

Face north, east, south, west—

on the horizon, the salted lake freighters  

dodge the dipping sun, back on shore

the dunes burn gold at day’s end.

In this place of flux, we face oppositions:

Piping Plovers and cigarette butts

six-pack rings and Blanding’s Turtles

Phragmites and Pitcher’s Thistle

Tundra Swans and ATVs.

We share the urgent sadness of seeing

Slurpee straws roll in the surf,

plastic bags ragged by the wind caught

in the branches of Sane Dune Willows.

But we also rejoice at the sight of Green Milkweed,

Blue-Flag beaches, Bald Eagles

dissecting the sky overhead.   

Time to come ashore? Hold for a moment,

let that current sucking at your calves have its way,

let the undertow take you out and under,

further, deeper, down to the lake bottom

past the few remaining giant lake sturgeon,

mumbling barbeled lamentations to miners

miles below, scraping road salt from cathedral caverns.

Here on the lake’s floor find

nine thousand years old bones of Caribou

hunted by peoples who came before.

So many peoples here before us, still with us,

we learn what they knew—what they know:

the lake is more than science—it is sacred.

We belong to it.

It’s time, come ashore

Your friends have gathered;  

you see them scouring the shoreline

armed with garbage bags and gloves,

a laughing communion of believers,

every bit of garbage collected,

every inch of shoreline protected—

an act of love, hope, imagination.

You teach your friends, your family what you know

and what you don’t. You watch your child, your grandchildren

step joyously into that water for the first time and know you are

doing something that runs deep, deeper, into the blue of Huron.