[Here in my native inland sea]

Bame-wa-wa-ge-zhik-aquay


Here in my native inland sea
From pain and sickness would I flee
And from its shores and island bright
Gather a store of sweet delight.
Lone island of the saltless sea!
How wide, how sweet, how fresh and free
How all transporting—is the view
Of rocks and skies and waters blue
And all unites in sweetest strains
To tell, here nature only reigns.
Ah, nature! here forever sway
Far from the haunts of men away
For here, there are no sordid fears,
No crimes, no misery, no tears
No pride of wealth; the heart to fill,
No laws to treat my people ill.

But all is glorious, free, and grand,
Fresh from the great Creator's hand.


Announcement

Elinor Benedict

Friends, for better or worse, white birches
and blue waters have taken me. Even
that half-year of ice got me under
its cover and made me give in. You ask
in a whisper, Why does she surrender
like this, wherever she goes? I answer,
Let's face it: I lose my head with my
body. Once it was blue mountains
that took my breath, the way they kept
reaching for sky. Then single green oaks,
bright in black fields. Here, after sleeping
with snow, white trillium and starflowers
wink among hemlocks, wild raspberries
taste of perfume, lemony aspens and birch
beckon toward fall. I suppose you could say
fidelity means nothing to me. But listen:
faith and geography are no blood enemies,
no blood kin. To the north wind's music,
I've married the country again.

South of Superior excerpt

Ellen Airgood

The next afternoon Madeline popped the Buick's hood and wiggled the battery cable, a trick Arbutus had suggested, saying she'd never owned a car under twenty years old in her life and knew all the tricks. The engine turned over and Madeline felt a rush of satisfaction. She shut the engine off again and headed across the empty lots to see Mary.

Mary was lounging beside her display, her feet propped on a crate, carrying on a conversation with a man Madeline had waited on at lunch. He was an investment banker from Manhattan who'd come north for the trout fishing. "Pull up a stump," Mary told Madeline, pointing at a spare lawnchair. "You want a pop, there's some in with the fish. Jack, you keep away from there."

All perfectly illegal, Madeline thought contentedly. No way was it USDA approved to sell home-caught fish from an iced-down cooler you had to swat your dog away from, but one good thing about McAllaster was, nobody cared, or almost nobody. The tourists loved the local color, and the locals would live and let live, mostly. The Bensons and people like them, people who wanted things more modern, more homogenized, more like wherever it was they'd come from, well, to Hell with them. Maybe they were within their rights—and Madeline had to admit she still thought that cutting off credit on delinquent accounts was not unreasonable, no matter what Gladys said and no matter how much she herself disliked them personally—but the Bensons' influence didn't extend this far, at least. Not yet.

Maybe McAllaster could resist gentrification. The north side of Chicago hadn't, as Madeline knew from Emmy's own experience struggling to stay in their apartment as the price of everything soared. A working-class neighborhood went upscale and pretty soon the people who'd made it what it was had to leave, unable to afford the cost of living and the homes they'd grown up in, homes where they'd raised families of their own. But here—maybe the harshness of the landscape and weather and economy would stop some of that, or slow it down. And besides, it wasn't all bad. She liked pesto and hummus, and if Gladys hadn't been at war with the Bensons, she'd have been in there buying those things.

Madeline shucked off her shoes. It had been busy today, challenging, and she felt pleasantly worn out. She smiled at the banker but didn't join in the conversation. Working at Garceau's, she...