Cave Point County Park, within the state park of Whitefish Dunes in the Door County peninsula of Wisconsin.
Slipping away from a conference, I wind
toward the jaggy edge in the joint of Door County’s cocked finger.
Coastline wind cuts through my jacket, slaps me,
the white cedars, and the bright feathers of the balsam firs about.
A few columbines remain, wave-worn flags
shaking their tatter, faded in the clear sky and sun.
Finally, I look down along the ledges of dolomite and limestone,
underwater caves, blowholes, the collect and freeze of water
abrading this brittle chalky scab that was once equatorial,
a reef before language named it reef,
now snaggled on the western edge of the Niagara escarpment.
Lake Michigan beats against the Devil’s Cauldron,
a ledge wide like the horseshoe farriered by St. Dunstan,
a pile of bonewhite stones in its bottom jaw.
I came here to write, but the cold holds me in the moment,
nine-hundred feet of shoreline down to the exposed, smoothed rock,
the gusty shimmy of trees between the trail and cliffs,
the lake’s muddy jade darkening at the horizon.
Seth Copeland is the author of Instead of Sunshine (Bottlecap Press, 2026) and his work has appeared in Poet Lore, Seneca Review, Puerto del Sol, The Shore, and South Dakota Review, among others. He edits petrichor, teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, and co-hosts the Tabi Po Poetry Series in Milwaukee.
Banner image is courtesy the poet.
