Kirk Park on Lake Michigan: Sleeping Bear Dunes

There is less beach today since the water levels on Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are higher than usual.  This is normal though since the water rises and falls every year.

Sleeping Bear Dunes on Lake Michigan.  The best sand dunes are found on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan due to the prevailing west winds.

Read more about these topics in The Dynamic Great Lakes by Barbara Spring

available wherever books are sold

Whitefish Run

Whitefish Run

They speed upstream to spawn after dark

slick as ice and pearly white:

whitefish from Lake Michigan’s depths

torpedo home.

With sure instincts

with DNA of generations

with chartreuse eggs; with white milt

their sleek white shapes streak

through dark river waters

now starting to freeze.

It’s been this way in the Great Lakes

since Edenic times

when Ice Age glaciers melted away.

And now in this coldest December

anyone alive can remember

fishermen risk a walk the piers

wear cleats on their boots

tie themselves to something solid.

They jig rigged lines on the river bottom

and sometimes land a sleek, slick, delicious fish

while west winds howl.

 

                               --Barbara Spring

 

From my book Sophia's Lost and Found: Poems of Above and Below

 

Available at Amazon.com, bn.com etc.