As children, my two sisters and I,
barefoot, climbed onto some large rocks
then waded in mud
to get to the small island in Wolf Creek.
We weren’t rock hunting at all,
just putting buckets sideways into the water
hoping to scoop up crayfish
to look at and put back.
But I felt something hard underneath
my heel, and I used my hands
to pry a large horn coral out of the mud.
This started my fascination with rocks.
Now in our 60’s, my sisters
and I go to Lake Michigan beaches
once again holding buckets and shovels.
We find quartz, Leland slag, an occasional pudding stone.
We find all kinds of stones.
Many cherish the beautiful agates of Lake Superior
I have yet to find one of those.
But given the choice, I like the fossils best.
The Charlevoix and Petoskey stones,
The horn coral and chain coral.
There is nothing like finding a brachiopod,
holding it in your palm,
and feeling a connection to something
that lived three hundred million years ago
when the world was so very, very different
from today.
—
Linda Haslanger is an emerging poet. She last wrote forty years ago. The passing of her mother (2023) and her creative writing teacher (2024) inspired her to start again. She lives in Indiana with her husband and her dog, and she has two grown children.
