Postcards from Grand Marais Bay

"By dusk the snow is already partially melted. There are dark patches where the grass shows through, like islands in the sea seen from an airplane. Which one is home?"  – Jenkins, from "First Snow"






A tour through cliffside lighthouse up along the edges near Duluth sold the couple to move. "So vast, so real," they both thought and said outloud as they looked up to see that monument to history standing so tall among the guarding stones. Moved to Grand Marais to become a fisherman and boatbuilder, no tools, only a touch of experience, but they changed their clothes to woodsy and grew out their hair to foil the landscape. He fell in love with what he began to call the sea; her her new tools, crochet needles, a tightly spread drum. Seagulls flew and drifted in and out of the sky like new ideas in white clothing. Neighbors they loved but saw only at night when they decided to extract themselves from their disciplines. Two beers and he knew they should have stayed in the city; for her, a wine, and she considered she might let him.