Decoration Day

"It was high summer, and the boy was lying in the corn. He was happy because he had no work to do and the weather was hot. He heard the corn sway from side to side above him, and the noise of the birds who whistled from the branches of the trees that hid the house. Lying flat on his back, he stared up into the unbrokenly blue sky falling over the edge of the corn. The wind, after the warm rain before noon, smelt of rabbits and cattle. He stretched himself like a cat, and put his arms behind his head. Now he was riding on the sea, swimming through the golden corn waves, gliding along the heavens like a bird; in sevenleague boots he was springing over the fields; he was building a nest in the sixth of the seven trees that waved their hands from a bright, green hill. Now he was a boy with tousled hair, rising lazily to his feet, wandering out of the corn to the strip of river by the hillside. He put his fingers in the water, making a mock sea-wave to roll the stones over and shake the weeds."

- Dylan Thomas, "A Prospect of the Sea"

Friday Night

Spent the better part of the sunset hour playing catch with my new friend Jake, a six year old from a neighboring apartment at Tourville. "He's just getting into hockey, he loves watching," his dad told us while grilling steaks on the communal deck. Jake threw spiral passes to me from down below in the cement parking lot, dilligently tallying, out loud, our respective catches and scores; I made running catches from the deck above, which looks out over the Marquette Senior High School football field, endless green trees and jagged Hogsback on the horizon, streaked with the yellows and blues and oranges of a Lake Superior sunset. How did he know that little Jake was a miniature version of me? We talked Vegas, Penguins, Red Wings, and NMU hockey, naming off our favorite Wildcats -- Robby Payne, Philip Beaulieu, Atte Toivanen. It capped a humid, sleep-deprived Friday that dragged at school. But it was the kickoff to Memorial weekend and it felt, symbolically, like the gatway to summer. The spring concert took place at school in the afternoon with an early release for most kids after that. Played catch with my little buddy Wyatt on the playground and supervised foursquare to end the day. Now, midnight approaching, I've got black magic brewing in the Keurig; dry lightning flashes outside my window like a Kodak camera flash over Lake Superior. A big thunderstorm supposedly rolling in from the North.

Sat. morning

LAMBROS BEACH, 10:00 a.m. -- First beach trip of the season this morning feels like boyhood summer. Still quite tired, this morning, from what felt like one of the longer school weeks of the year. Consequently accomplished little writing last night and this morning. The apartment's been getting its summertime stickiness back in the humid heat wave, and no amount of coffee could fuel any productive second wind. It was initially about 10 degrees cooler on the lakefront, but it's getting palpably warmer as the sun crests towards mid-sky, a brilliant, cloudless blue. There's a diminishing veil of fog hovering at water level, beneath the ore dock and amidst the buoys. There are already several beachcombers out on this pristine spring morning. You can hear summer break in the shouts and voices of children; actually just encountered two students on the beach -- "I just found this rainbow-colored rock in the water!" one shouted joyfully. Two little boys in water wings now splashing in the shallows thirty yards down the beach. The shadowy outline of a fishing vessel can faintly be heard sputtering a couple hundred yards out. Sand flies are pestering; along with sand spiders and dragonflies abound in the beach grass, the proverbial birds and bees of spring. Seagulls cawing now from out above their craggy islands.

Sun. Evening

Up near the secret beach on the cliffs looking down on the little glistening bay where kids dive into the water from black rocks as a right of passage every summer. Jackpines, evergreens, and birch trees shield the setting sun, an orange glowing sphere behind the deep green of freshly bloomed trees. There are families taking photographs out on black rocks now; the rocks take on that merlot hue at sundown, the gently breathing lake glistening cerulean. Intended to listen to game 7 of the NBA ECF here, but the batteries on my handheld radio are dead on arrival. "Lebron can wait". The sun is still catching my spot on the cliff, an intermittently craggy, mossy, and pinestrewn overlook in the shade of several pines, but behind me, the woods are getting cooler and darker, haunting even.

A lone kayaker steers around Black Rocks against a dusty rose sunset, the lake deep blue-green in the shadows, placid slate blue in the dying light. The kayaker's turned himself around, now, against the current, pausing momentarily to admire the majesty of the Superior sunset, a mystical prospect in its remote grandeur. Two ducks swoop down over the water in continuity; a girl is snapping photographs of an incrasingly purple sunset from atop a lone rock tower jutting up from the glacial crags of rock. Gitche Gumme ripples effortlessly into the rock walls, its fog having lifted in the cold glow of dusk.

"Do it!" I shouted at a college-aged male wearing nothing but board shorts who had emerged suddenly from the cove. He climbed the rocks towards the designated jumping area, contemplated his decision. He jumped, causing a splash that echoed off the rocks, around the cove, and disappeared somewhere far out over the depths of Lake Superior. "Fuck that!" he shouted when he bobbed up from the icy waters, prompting chuckles from the four or five of us who had witnessed the spectacle from various perspectives. It seemed a fitting send-off; it was getting darker and it was high time to hike back to the car, which was on the other end of the island. Hiking up the road to the eastern side of the island, you could see the moonglow of a nearly-full moon reflecting golden against the lake's vast blue surface. You could hear the blue collar shouts and demands echoing from atop the rails on the ore dock -- they were loading up one of the big ore oats docked there, its bright lights glowing golden like gigantic fireflies against the blood red of the ore dock.