Category: Member Poem

GREAT LAKE

We know it’s there
beyond the fringe of trees

We hear it lap the shore
lick grains of sand erasing
our footprints

Wracks pile against rocks
white with gull guano

Each wave rinses clean
each bird replenishes

Mary Jo Stich / Denmark, Wisconsin

Formed in the cauldron of life
out of limestone, soda, and sand,
at our best, we are pieces of glass.

Far more useful than diamonds
which flash in the light, are the windows
and lenses that clarify sight.

While mirrors are attractive, and at first
glance us please, they can distort
and may often deceive.

There’s no higher calling, than, when held
in good hands, you brighten the vision
and help understand.

So if you open a wall, magnify small, bring
something far up closer, you make good use
of the time you possess,

And so does the person who finds you,
who chooses to leave this world wiser,
and thus might forever be blessed.

Steve Williams / Munith, Michigan

Between the yardstick and the mile
The Rumor animates fields of Anemones.
It feeds the fish that drinks the rain.
It turns the plumes of broad winged hawks,
Huffs into sails of lonely ships.
It warms the tomb with candle flame
And further than this star.
All things breath in its trace,
Taste with its tongue,
Belie the exigence of form.
And in a book I read,
The wounded heart was freed
Upon a day when the rain fell up.

Can one dream of what can never be?
Is it outside of human possibility?
Words and words thrown at the corner
Where no one stands.

– Ken Wilding / Spring Lake, Michigan