Elberta, Michigan
We begin in the emerald dark forest.
My grandmother’s cottage hidden,
Baba Yaga cabin dwarfed
by giant maples, ancient pines
trembling aspen.
We gather firewood.
Stick arms of old crag, horned
branches like white stag,
tumble them into the rusted
station wagon.
Not yet twenty, we: on the brink
of everything! Such deep dark
we follow by heart the broken
roads turned tracks. In this land
of snow and long light
children must learn
two-track language.
We can climb inside
any dense wood.
We always find our way
to the water.
Our ancient vehicle slides
down sine wave sand hills,
angles of death.
Eclipsing the sleeping dune,
we expect a golden city.
Under an indigo sky
a roar of brilliant bonfires
a braille of bright coals
tracing the haven shoreline.
For some young vernal
such nights are shadow play.
Lit by flame,
no stranger too strange.
Curious joys hidden
in dips of dune.
We are moonblind.
On this thick night:
No bodies rollicking,
dune to water. Sand
in every crevice
for weeks after, a
long reminder.
But not tonight.
No carousing.
Only the four of us, hushed
along the salubrious shore.
We are intimate, well-lit.
We will not drive home
in a haze of second-hand cars
snaking over sand dunes
at witching hour,
beware-ing.
This night, gentle feral,
we will root and slumber.
Under dunegrass and Ursa Major
soft bodies become prayers.
No danger of high tide
on this fresh small sea,
our Great Familiar.
Over honey mead
and figs, we cast
a crude circle of stones
to hold the fire.
Winds gust and all
our borrowed flame,
now ash.
Dust to dust.
We must trust
our limbs
for the seeking.
We gather driftwood
for burning, mirror crones
scouting bones
for divination.
The moon rises.
In this light, the pile
of bleached-white driftwood
glows. To the eye it seems
we have constructed
a small home of whalebone.
A pyre of some ancient,
knowing thing.
Living proof.
We kindle everything
in need of burning.
When all is gone
we fall into sleep
like babes, swaddled.
Great Dune Cradle:
Palm of the Universe.
We wake to early mauve,
heavy dew slick
across our fleshly cheeks.
Under each, a bed of damp
sand, wet with holy water.
Not one of us is blameless,
but we are anointed:
by rain, and by the sweat
of our own electric arc of
bodies, and the water of
Great Lake Michigan.
We rise to leave.
Our bodies careen
over driftwood and dunegrass
aubergine shadows
realize dawn
developing, immersed
in the bath of time.
Twenty years on,
and still I come.
Though not at midnight.
I bring rudimentary gifts
but no firelight.
Latitude and longitude
remain, or so it seems.
Walking the shoreline,
I burn my soles on a bed
of hidden fire, sweet
dark matter
evidence
of memory
and dream.
Meredith Katie Hoogendam
Merkat (Meredith Katie Hoogendam) is a poet, writer, educator, and interdisciplinary artist. A member of the Writer’s Union of Canada and associate member of the League of Canadian Poets, her work can be found in literary, feminist, and interfaith publications across North America, including Room Magazine and Geez, among others. Her poetry collections include Mothertongue, Courage, Spring Thaw, and Materials at Hand. A community radio broadcaster, her current project, ”Nightfall with Merkat”, considers poetry from years past, with an emphasis on folks outside the conventional canon. Merkat was raised along the shores of Lake Michigan, in Michigan’s Northern Lower Peninsula. For the past twenty years, she has made a home along the Northern shore of Lake Ontario. She is of the Great Lakes.
Find her online @merkatart ; follow her poetry, visual art, essays, and ongoing projects through her newsletter.