Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

Sitting on the rock dock, that was hauled here by horses long ago, I try to avoid dangling modifiers, escaped adjectives, the fishy river smell, the dreams of my cabin youth. Dragonflies in a mating dance strafe my upturned face, promising me a contemplative future, the expected narratives of cabin summers, the expectancy that a bald eagle will break my revery.  Cold, iron-stained water covers my toes as I wade into the shallow water, avoiding jagged rocks and crayfish,  heading for deeper pockets, floating between granite obstacles. I submerge my body deep in the cloistered, silent water, on the sandy river bed, imagining the walleyes swimming by my head, and rock bass ignoring my presence. I rest here, sloughing off the cares, finding my own private Bethlehem as Joan Didion might, in the less brackish deep. I hover.

Stung by mosquitoes that are driven by bloodlust I sit in the outhouse of undeniable redoubt Please give me this boon, the living of the senses A sensory world that never fades I lose my voice, amidst the bullfrog croak Greenery and tree root, the slap of tail on water 

Snow on spruce boughs, The second coming of a rabbit Disrupts the morning silence I think of you asleep miles away In clouded memories of fog Here in the snowy north, The temperature dropped to negative 25 Even the birds are silent, But the spruces still contemplate our Tiny backyard, unaware of our plights.

Place matters in the grand scheme  as we plan the rest of our short lives in between careers, births, and death, tracing the lines of worry and doubt on faces that age like earthen masks,  cracking and morphing into new forms  that recall our parents and their familiar tragedies and strategies in months that begin with archaic, internalized letters, fomenting lethargy and resilience like the graying maples and elms, the wintry oaks, the desolate brown topped spruce,  as those seasons change and loss becomes static reality in this Upper Peninsula, this region of utmost cold, where the snow falls and blankets the silent masses, ergo, a laugh, a sound, an eruption of jubilant life in resistance to the colors that drain, clamorously calling out for meaning.  Ha! Relentless ones! You are stuck here! Lift up your choices and dig in!

My wife, Carrie, and I hit the trails yesterday and took some cool pictures on the DeGray Lake Resort Island Trail. We were not expecting to find so much wildlife. We saw many deer and a fox family lurking near their den. Watching the deer reminded me of Jonathan Richman's version of Marty Robbins' "Man Walks Among Us." As the deer and fox either scurried away through the underbrush or stood silently and watched, I felt like we were trespassing in this beautiful area. We slowly made our way through and left the animals to their lives.

The side streets are slick and worn as I walk daily to the college working on frustrations as old as time in holey shoes and slighted ambition My twisted ankle, my mucked up transmission tiny travesties leading to submission of mind, of thought, of body rot in flooded back alleys and musty university towns I walk past solemn green and dirty brick a facade thrown across the earth darkened windows hide secrets in the midst of wind-bent trees The fragile ecosystem of roadwork and wax shelters my way through the days past Sycamores and White Oaks unlit houses and the cries of feral cats