November
The river steeps loose-leafed and dark
and geese are chilled to whistle south
steam smokes the rim above the field
the oaks—again—have missed the pour
hoard leaves like coupons,
magazines.
“Waste not, waste not,” they shout,
“squeeze the year’s last savor out.
Want not want
not want
not.”
Grayling, 1936
Ghost fish, gray siren, you
reeled in dandied
anglers by the trainload,
your improbable fin fanning the Au Sable.
Lumbermen’s drunken dash leered your landscape,
ignited the water, torched your
nurseries to myth, and stamped your name on this
gray town, still reeling.
Across Northern Waters Tonight
Scudding in a stiff nor ’wester
pieces of a girl, long haired and strong,
are left behind where they belong
in this shin-tangle of cedar and fern
in the agate scree along this shore,
wooed by waves remorseful.
Pieces of a girl
who tossed her loveliness
like sand into the wind
—I wondered where they’d gone.
They’ve built a watchtower above the crown
left a grace on every thorn.
Three Trees
—after a painting by Manierre Dawson
Fruit was a dream in rows
tucked behind these shouldering dunes
who lift the sweet rains over and tamp
the west winds down,
a dream of little factories in wooden towns
turning out three-point orchard ladders
and crates stamped “Michigan”.
In the age of steam,
pine and puccoon
—whose roots weave on beneath the loam
were swept into apple, peach, and pear.
Spring is so fragile here
it’s held in wood-ribbed goblets
whose sleeping leaves, furled in fists, wait
for the lake to tap the shore awake
to clear its throat, say
Now.
For Michigan poet Mary Katharine Parks Workinger, a love affair with the Great Lakes’
watershed (four generations in the making) not only informs her writing, it colors her reading. To
her, the lake “lapping with low sounds by the shore” is a sweetwater sea—fragile, eternal. Heard
always in the deep heart’s core.
Parks Workinger’s 35-year career as an editor includes work for three state universities, two
office furniture manufacturers, four independent nature presses, and an international wildlife
magazine. Most recently, she served as associate editor of the Middle West Review (University
of Nebraska Press). Her poetry has appeared in The Feast, Heart of Flesh, The MacGuffin, and
The Grand Valley Review. She publishes nonfiction essays on Michigan art, literature, and
history at Substack: https://michiganographer.substack.com/ and uses her Twitter/X account to
promote Great Lakes’ artists and writers.