THE POINT OF THE MISSION

THE POINT OF THE MISSION:
ORAL EMISSIONS
 FROM MISSION POINT


Where once it was deep
Lake Michigan reveals
its rocks and sandy spots.

Was the water too low or the land too high?
                           
If you asked the bay, it receded
and invited the beach out to play.

The peninsula argued
it stuck out its tongue to extend the beach
and spat the rocks into the bay.

The lighthouse, unbiased,
from advantaged stand,
probably knows, but is closed
and has nothing enlightened to say

Either way,
tourists were challenged to come and play.

Cameras clicked and children balked
While park hikers walked
and a daddy and daughter waded, feet wet, in water.

Bird watchers followed a spit
out  fifteen minutes before getting wet, their
binoculars arcing the horizon wide
or swaying on necks
with cameras, side to side

Two bike guys paused.
“So far, so good,” was heard.
Then off, a few yards down,
to stop again at a cherry stand.
Waving vendors, girls, the likely cause.

Peninsula pit-spitter professors met nearby
    (In Traverse City it’s cherries)
to advance their techniques and see
how far their pithy products would carry.
They focused their eyes and marked their pits;
fellows from the academy would  follow
for pith and a prize.

Dennis R. Keefe
9/16/05