Archive
07/02/10 - (1)
Five Voices of the Wind
I
What a long, good Lake Nebagamon day This first Friday in July has been, From the very minute I awakened, by the tempestuous lake (Gusting up to thirty-five howling miles per hour), Till this raucous 8:30 right now, With a crowded, rowdy salmagundi of preholiday revelers Festively acting out, like playground kids, On Lawn Beach Inn's deck, overlooking the yet-roiling waves. This day has been the best in decades, millenniums.
II
"Bone-rattling" is how I'd describe this in-your-face wind, A violent, vicious, pernicious big blow Ripping across Lake Nebagamon, out of its south bay, Whipping up the sand, dust, and litter, off the village's streets, Reminding residents and tourists alike That this far-northern Wisconsin I visit, with regularity, Is never exempt from domination by nature's elements, Life's daunting suzerain over all human intentions to the contrary, And that we can't even begin to know the wind's mind.
III
This evening of leafy tree limbs whiplashing each other, A tattered Old Glory, Clinging to its freshly-white-painted, brass-ball-topped flagpole, Anchored to the sward leading down to the public beach, Seems about ready to give up its ghost, bolt, Fly off its clips, leave behind its pulleys and frayed rope, Disappear, in a blurred, whirling, red-white-and-blue flourish, Into the cyclonic heights of this second night of July. Perhaps it won't even attend the Independence Day celebration.
IV
Earlier this morning, from the end of my dock, I watched eight sleek boys'-camp sailing craft braving the gale, Inlaying a mosaic of constellations, on a sky of water. How amazingly free their precarious freedom felt, to me, How very bold, how brave, imagination made me, As I engaged those fierce, zigzagging lake waves, in those boats, As though I were master of the great seas of old, Traversing oceans, in search of earthly eternities, Hoping to reach tomorrow's shore, in one piece of glory.
V
Seven red, six white stripes, And, in the upper-left-hand quadrant of that proud canvas, A rectangle of navy blue Punctuated with fifty small proud stars, The whole a stirring evocation, Especially during this once-in-a-nation's-lifetime season Of the common man's fanfare-salute to freedom and peace — That tattered Fort McHenry fabric flapping, ecstatic, In the shattering wind, battered but never vanquished.
07/02/10 - (1)
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