Off to Pictured Rocks

Andrew and I said goodbye to the band on Mackinac Island and headed up to four nights of backpacking along Pictured Rocks National Lake Shore. We arrived in Grand Marais to catch a shuttle van that would take up over to Munising so that we could walk the entire 45 mile stretch back to our car. The woman who drove our shuttle van talked a lot of politics and complained a lot about making a living up in the U.P. She said that she had driven the same van for 27 years and her pay was still only $11.00 an hour! It got me thinking a lot about the disparity between nature and class. In other words, why can't places rich in natural beauty also be rich in social justice?

We decided not to take our instruments for the four night, five day journey. It would be a time to clean out our musical selves, and a time to use our brains to come up with a concept for a piece that we would write together for our upcoming Artist-In-Residence stay on Isle Royale.


Sleep on the Shore

We are going to bed soon
before the sun
Under a canopy of, aspen, hemlock, and sugar maple
where birch grow in packs
invading the rocks that look over Lake Superior

I can still see the bald eagle that flew underneath us
Zoom bird
brown and white
big shadow passing over turquoise water