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Shaped like a mitten and surrounded by blue
She is a quilt with many layers
The green of summer blushing with trees
Riding boats on endless lakes
The Anishnabe got it right
In their native tongue Ojibwe
When they named her Mishigama
“Large water” or “large lake”

The winter’s white forms like ice
Frozen compasses held in place
Carhartts, coffee, and hot chocolate
Wrap the victims of a runaway cold
Where snowmobiles tremble
Skies slash through powder
And cars ride in ditches
To be pulled out in warmer weather

The spring melts winter in a rainy thaw
Colors of brown and yellow
Unearth from the solid ground
As nature returns to her wild side
The deer, the bear, the flown away birds
Give birth to the coming year
Morels are picked as coats are unzipped
And the world awakes to the coming morn

Fall is the season of all seasons
A painter’s pallet is always full
The red, orange, and yellows
Burn through the landscape like fire
The harvest and hunt commence
The acorns fall like rain as the birds take flight
Ahead lies the cold grip of a coming change
As fingers hold on dearly to a fast slipping day

It is a land both young and old
Writ on the bark of distant tribes
Built upon the shoulders of assembly lines
Midwestern all the way and blue collar to the bone
It’s a place where Hockey Town skates
Lions and Tigers sleep in their cages
Ford motors run deep even with empty gas tanks
And your hand can be a map when the way gets lost

Lumberjacks created lumbering towns
With cabins made of wood and fireplaces of stone
In those kitchens venison cooks
With pies, breads, and pasties
Hands are calloused and shirts are flannel
Fashionable for those who keep it simple
Boredom plays out in a hand of Euchre
A game known mostly to fellow Michiganders

Two peninsulas together as one
Connected by a vast suspension bridge
Mackinaw stands like a smile between two lips
You can see her glisten in gold
When the sun cascades above the blue
A shimmering rock skipped across her crest
It is at these moments of impossible beauty
That your place called home actually exists

You might lose sight of her when age takes hold
But you are bound to her like feathers to a bird
In the distant shores of childhood’s spent
You return to her with melancholy
An itching in your heart; a quiet reminder
Of a place where you were born
And when people ask you where you’re from
You smile, show them your right hand
…..And point

This poem is Copyright ยฉ zedwards