A fragile and feathery hope grows in my chest It tickles my ribcage and brushes against my cheeks Like the kiss of a bird’s wing as it takes flight. The moment suspended Between the weight of the world And the unburdened sky. Small and tender hearted This alien thing grows inside of me. At night I feed it quietly with whispered dreams And words I am too afraid to say aloud. I do not yet know whether it will become Friend or foe to me as it grows. ...

The bees have infested my brain again Rattling around within my skull Like a ricochet bullet Unwilling to settle on damaging a single target. They fill my mind with vibrations like a tremor behind my eyes Like a precursor pressure Waiting to crack open my head When the real earthquake hits Releasing the infestation of my mind Upon the world that was never prepared For this devastation that I have lived with Everyday like a close companion Or a haunting voice whispering in your ear Words you do not want to hear. ...

The jagged edges of me Clash up against fluidity; Unrelenting shattering. Shards of ice caught Between land and sea Where lines blur to reveal Snow blankets everything. Only the tall stand above The war of attrition Between the changing tides And the bedrock beneath.

Virgin snow collapses under a heavy foot Like sand washed away from a steep embankment By waves impatient of passing time. Footprints dug deep below the surface Only to be covered by the next snowfall; Man lacks permanence in a place such as this. Translucent diamonds fall from the soft blue sky Sharp and glinting in sunlight That offers no warmth or respite from biting winds. Tree limbs grow heavy with new white robes Bowing before the might of Winter With sideways eyes on far away Spring. ...

In many ways, I fail to find the correct words to describe this feeling because the pain is not my own. I cannot lay claim to this grief even though it tears at my heart and wearies my soul. I know how dreadfully Jacob’s family misses him and the grief of struggling to understand his premature death burdens both his family back in Connecticut and his new family in California. The death of a person so young cannot be justified, especially when they have so much life left to live. But I cannot speak for his family, I cannot speak for Mackenzie or her children, I can only share my memories of Jacob in the hopes that my own struggle to comprehend the incomprehensible may help others facing the same uphill battle. My words cannot be sufficient to encapsulate the pain of Jacob’s death, but I hope they can bring back a piece of the light that Jacob shared with everyone he encountered in life. ...

Be careful where you tread Small life grows here. Fragile yet persistent Chances of success Wax and wane constantly. Look closely Don’t miss the tiny opportunity To witness something Greater than yourself. A tree can grow With roots born from stone.

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” – John Muir Fewer words ring truer in my mind than John Muir’s transcendental musings on nature, the wilderness of this world, and the triad connection between man, the outdoors, and the universe. For me, Winter arrives with a contemplation as a companion every year. There is something about snow, the coldness of winter, and the stripping down of life to its raw bones that always leaves me in awe. In many ways I am gladly forced into this state of introspection during this time of year; it is during these times that Muir returns to me again and again as I confront the devastating beauty of the natural world. ...

Ever since I can remember I have been coming to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to visit our family compound on the shores of a lake fed by Lake Superior. I never went to summer camp or a sports camp as a child, instead I gathered alongside my numerous cousins, aunts and uncles, and under the amused gaze of my grandparents to run amuck in the forests and swim in the Great Lakes. The sun never seemed to fade on those long summer nights.The memories and experiences I had during those endless summers forever altered who I was and who I would become in ways so numerous that this blog post could never even begin to contain all of them. The shores of Lake Superior will always be my second home, but standing where I have stood many times before on the Sandstone cliffs of Jacobsville as the light from the first day of 2018 fades into shades of soft pink, I realize just how unfamiliar and new familiar places can become. ...

Honestly, I do not know how to begin again. This space was my home for so many years when my words could find no ears to fall upon with quiet urgency. For those who have joined me on my journey either part way or all the way back eight years ago from the very beginning, and for those who are starting today, know this: the last two years my words have been nonexistent. I could name a thousand reasons that left me hesitating with my fingers hovering above a dusty keyboard, but none are sufficient to strip the guilt away from my heart. Writing has always been the life-blood of my being and to halt the progress of pen on paper is to bring my heartbeat to a startling stand still. However, that isn’t even true. It was more gradual than that, there was no jarring day where the words stopped coming, it was a slow, drawn out decay of all that made me, me. ...

I know I have been gone for so long now And I was gone long before you noticed my absence; Long before the words stopped appearing on the page Life took me in and swallowed me whole. Before I realized that the dream was really A monster waiting with epic patience And a growling gut with my name written On the insides of its being, etched into its bones. It was born for me and I for it. ...