Boundary Waters

A Northern Minnesota Longing

Quetico Rock 

It fit my fist, its face an uncanny capture 
of a field of hand-pressed flowers, 
framed in true north-woods midnight blue, 
formed for fingers to curl and caress, 
a vanished amulet from a circle-center offering.

On what altar is it displayed now? 
This Lake Superior talisman, 
awarded for achy well-canoed arms, 
stroking, stroking, as if to steady drum beats
over diamond-speckled Boundary Waters.

A sunrise-to-sunset pocketed partner
through pine-canopy camping, campfires, 
and moonlit mosquito-meshed meanderings. 
Glacial memories pressed, condensed, not fully gone.
The longing, the spirit, the Quetico quest still strong.

Have you found where you belong?

There will always be a part of me that is Minnesotan. The girl who swam, paddled, and ran freely all summer, checking in only when the town whistle blew from the water tower. Noon, six, and ten—times for the feral to check in about food or curfew. It was a free-reign life, with five lakes easily walkable, including the one two blocks away with a swimming beach known as the best in the state. It’s easy to be nostalgic about it, to soar above the memories, to ignore the parts of me rising up about the rosy pictures I paint of this lake-and-pines place where I still belong, even knowing how life here on Whidbey Island instantly became home. I do belong here. Here and there—with all these parts of me swirling about with their own comments and addendums. I’ll listen. I’ll reassure them, and I’ll spare you that conversation for now. And so, again, I’ll ask… Have you found where you belong?