The Hungry Lake

Twelve-mile Beach,
Lake Superior

Waves tugging at the sand beside the broad blue of Superior, with great effort she lifted herself-- each labored step, dragging her clumsy body a bit further, beyond their reach onto the otherwise empty, windblown edge of Michigan’s Twelve-mile Beach.
Knocked off the breeze carrying her in carefree flight above its lapping waters by a long, curling tongue of this hungry lake, she’d escaped a watery death.
But, wings now heavy with droplets, she could not rise from the smooth, wet sand.

Green Darner dragonfly, female

As the grains dissolved from beneath each tiny, clawed foot, I stooped and lifted her onto my finger and walked with her, while the wind dried her transparent wings.
I left her to rest on a strand of beach grass beside the great lake, which boasts of many victories--having devoured so many, so great.
While her insatiable hunger goes on, I stole this dragonfly from her plate.

windswept sand

(click to enlarge)

Twelve-mile Beach

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Going to the Chapel...

I still pore through piles of photographs, captured, now months ago, when we took just one day to travel north and spend the week walking a great lakeshore. With each, reviving an impression so great upon our reaching daylight, after passing down a dim and winding trail from within the dense, north woods--of a broad beach and open water which, at first, lay calm and still.
In mounting wind and change of sky, I wrapped my head with an extra shirt, tying the sleeves beneath my chin. And, sat, backed into a great dune, the wall of woods behind me.
As, under piles of clouds, waves rose and tore at the shore, reaching higher and higher with each cast upon the beach--rolling colorful stones, as the marbles of a child.
Days from now, I will not recall the name of this grand place on Superior’s southern shore.
But, I will not forget the little ladybug that walked a path, around and around, on one smooth stone--just out of the water's reach.

the trail to Chapel Beach

Bicknell's Cranesbill

woods filled with Yellow Birch

small waterfalls

a slug has found a mushroom

Chapel Beach,
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Michigan

Chapel Rock

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

The pictures worth a thousand words...

northern shore of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan,
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

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