The blood of Lake Superior
runs in veins
under forests
reaches beyond the faint horizon,
seeps deeper than what we know.
The Lake of unpredictable winds,
iron ships,
the famous outline on vacationers’ t-shirts,
on forearm tattoos,
the Lake to whom we pledge allegiance
the Lake with whom we live
is limited only by topography
held only by gravity.
The Lake is pooling in snowmelt
in my backyard this afternoon.
She is roaring down northern canyons,
spreading quietly into estuaries.
She is seeping through rocks,
through tailings piles,
eroding the land that feeds her
deepening her own indentation into sand and volcanic stone.
Rivers as her arteries, each with a year-long heartbeat,
high water, then low.
Rivers as her children
named
Baptism,
Nipigon,
Caribou,
Brule,
Kaministiquia
Partridge,
Savannah,
St. Louis.
Children with whom there is no separation.
Rivers as gifts
as warmth
as shelter
as legacy
Rivers as both birth and death carried to her shore.