"Many Rivers to Cross"

The loft overlooks pines but mostly stares deeply into their midsection. Through the V-shaped space in the Northern Cedar, Lake Michigan sparkles and spreads for hundreds of miles. White caps – white pine – white tails. On the ground, between two trees and flanked by two red kayaks, a tiny path carries you over a sand dune unto seemingly illimitable, sequestered shoreline.

At 3 a.m., the stars seem to scream against the backdrop of total darkness. I make the short hike out to the beach and find myself contemplating the difference between making love and being love. I can hear nothing but waves breaking against bone-cold sand. Afterwards, coffee at sunrise for just me. Toast with peanut butter for just me. Moving and stretching and humming around the loft for just me.

Later, I trek down a steep gorge feeling tiny against living walls of the ravine. And yet, almost simultaneously, I lose all sense of borders to the point of unlimited expansion. Coming upon the Cut River I disappear. An old fallen oak as thick as a school bus bridges the narrower part of the river. A beaver dam slightly upstream diverts the flow of water near a shallow point. I realize what I had wrong is the fact that I cannot bring you here. I can't bring anyone here. We are either here as one or not.

I am brave to cross over the river and I do not fall. I'm done merely trying to survive. I want to live.