Thoughts Of Big Red On This Windy Day

Thoughts Of Big Red On This Windy Day

Before the gate house, the cottage association
the historical commission and let's not forget the rich
there sat on our southern pier a large red lighthouse
years past it's working life but available I was told 

by my younger brother to rent to a college age guy

like him, who thought it'd be so cool

Even if he had to risk life and limb getting to the rusty door 

chopping off thick layers of sprayed on ice to enter

what to me seemed like a dark metal tomb 

where condensation would drip upon his drawn in head 

while he dreamed of sailing inland seas and vast oceans 

unencumbered by access rules

Early this March on a cloudless day
sky as blue as it ever gets in Michigan

when winds were steady past thirty

my wife and I braced ourselves

against clouds of pelting sand 

while near the edge of the northern pier

Once more we were in total awe of surging water 

wondering how any man made structure could survive

but there, still on the southern pier
though leaning a bit
was the past, the present
and who knows - the future