A square county void—
Barren, if you will (but don’t)—
Of all less than joy.

North toward the border
As stars streak ‘top my head
And I approach the lonely coast…
Before me lies a black hole
That eats the shore and turns it into fish,
Algae, and other weedy sea things.
This Great Lake constantly chomps at the sand
With waves pushed and pulled by the Moon
Far overhead.

The paddle boat I stole slaps her surface
Pushing forward toward her eye.
Without her blinking
I sit here thinking
Shrinking smaller for a while
Under the galaxies and stars draping the sky
All the while being swallowed
By her darkness.

I awaken by the first breath of dawn
Kissing port, and I roll over
To catch the birth of life beneath my boat.
Birth turns to death
And the water to a mirror
As a I lean closer still to see
Who that is beneath
But find it’s only me
Before my face kisses the blackened glass
And she takes another victim
Called to her by her beauty.

A misnomer, the name,
For this place is Green
(And Gold, to be sure),
Where blue jays soak in the sun
Pink skies drape the sunset
Red cardinals sing “Go Pack Go”
And yellow cheese sits atop my head.

But no brown.

The rickety stand,
Perched high in an oak,
Is surrounded by dewy leaves
Of the morning
Soaking my sleeves
Of the coat I lugged through the trees
That encase me
In a cocoon of silence.

Burning coffee scorches my throat.
Through muffled gags, a snap
Of what I hope
And see
Is a twig beneath a toe
Of a brown target
Through a window in the leaves.

The scope is slow to reach my eye
But the wait is worth to spy
On the angel buck
300 yards out.

The crosshairs frame this angel’s halo,
Sunrise peeking through the tines.
The crosshairs frame this angel’s heart,
Trigger and my nail align.

The forest’s filled with echoes
Of waves escaping from my barrel
Following close behind the bullet
That kicks up colors up ahead.

No red, only the white
Of his rear end saying goodbye
To bless another with his sight.

Below,
Browned tires carry us across dirt roads
Into the heart of Crex Meadows.
The windows rolled tightly
To prevent any more foreign dusts
From pillaging my lungs.
The cold-blowing A/C pierces the left side of my face
When I’m looking at her
And the right side of my face
When I investigate the deepening meadows
Paced before me.

Above,
The clouds crinkle and clamor for my attention,
Morphing into shapes that only I can see.
Kingfishers and chickadees often obscure
The blue canvas stretched taut against the Sky.
My paintbrush eyes dart down only to find us
Touching a creek with our balding tires.

Before
Us sat the landing strip
For pelicans-a-plenty.
Eighty sea birds chose to touch down
On this remote prairie creek
In this northern, wooden, meek
Corner of Wisconsin.
For hours they sat resting,
Waiting for the moment they’d use all their strength
To take off from this unassuming bed
The last of whom tears night from day
Revealing nascent diamonds
That speckle the Sky.