Leelanau Calling

Just as bees squeeze like watermelon seeds Spit across apricot fields My wife and I on Friday Join the lines of highways up north Pulled by hilltops to the Leelanau blue sky Where lakes stir in the wind at the citrus rims Of wine valleys below And cherry orchards blossom in row after row Like sheets of cupcakes spiraled with frosting. Tonight we will sit tight around our lakeside fire As petals closed upon this blaze of flower With a Loon trilling her flute of bones To the stars salted across the night And voices bump from shore to shore Murmurs softened beyond repair The cabins flickering to a second life In a fuse of fire lit around our lake A tradition. We stop the car a ways away From my mom and dad’s cabin And let out our kids on the shoulder of road To run like deer the final half mile.