Grand Marais Estuary, in Fog (after the painting by Stanley Krohmer)
Color of ice, or heaps of snow, gray-blue, slate.
Texture enough to point out land, two spots,
but catalog the rest as sky, wave, or in-between
where all reside, even us. How far
we’ve come from home to stay at a hilltop
cabin riven with mice, brush burrs
from the dog’s coat, find a place in town
to eat whitefish and hear the tales
while the proprietor pours pinot noir
noting our clothing, hair, and diction
as non-U.P. but still acceptable to him.
We made the pilgrimage when Jim was still
alive, regaled him with one or two repeated
stories—one about Ulysses, another a sledge
struck at a deer. Or was it a bear, in town?
The place laps on without him now, the bay,
the bars, and in our town a stand of staghorn
sumac turning red again where we took
photos of him and us—the giant a monument
before collapse, sprawled across his studio floor.
