Day 4 - 1-16-13

Prompt for: January 16, 2013
Subject or Theme: A Trip to... (I love going on trips ~ take me on one-somewhere real please)
Word(s) to Include: (the place you're taking me)
Forbidden Word(s): destination(s), location(s), place(s), trip(s), vacation(s)
Additional Parameters: I'd like to feel like I've really gone on a trip after reading your poem!





Mackinac Meandering

I've stolen you away for a day
to wander across the strait to Mackinac.
Naw. It is Mack-in-naw, not nack--
come sit here, with the sun at your back
where you can see from afar
the Grand Hotel on Mackinac.





You grin, silly one, no
I will not spend the day in rhyme
but it is truth that the island is a poem
and each verse, more spectacular than the last.
Breathe deeply, inhale the scent of lilacs
blossoming out across the water.
They bloom late here;
a second serving of purples and pinks to soothe the senses.

Even from afar the Mighty Mac looms
stretching 'cross the Straights-silvered arc
dominating the horizon. We turn, looking forward--
the Island awaits.



The ferry docks, but we turn not towards the shops,
we don't follow the herd of tourists. No.
I lead you around the corner where a carriage awaits
for no cars travel these cobbled stone streets.
Our horses are Barney and Dray. You gasp, for they
make a Clydesdale look small by comparison. Full
twenty-one hands boasts our bearded driver who is eighty
if he is a day. Garbed in Herringbone tweed jacket
with suede-patched elbows, jaunty leather cap and sporting
a finely barbered Van Dyke beard, his Scots burr extols
life set a sidestep out of the stream.
You ohh and ahh at Victorian porches edged in lilac lace,
at gardens exploding in rose and peony,
at wrought iron gates spread wide in welcome.



I regret that we cannot pass the night at the Grand Hotel
for my pockets are not that deep. Yet we pause to look
and then Friedrick, our driver, turns round in his seat,
Lake Michigan-blue eyes sparkling, and passes me
a pair of tickets. "Go on," says he. "Go for a stroll
on the Grand Veranda. You haven't been to Mackinac,
truly, less you have."



We stroll down the great expanse of porch, past hundreds
of white, wide-boarded chairs just begging for a sit and a rock.
Yet, we haven't much time: the veranda is ready for afternoon tea.
Fine bone China cups set with patterns of scrolled gold
await sipping near plates of finger sandwiches and petits fours:
éclairs, macaroons, ladyfingers, bonbons. I wonder
if I dare snitch one. I hesitate and you quickly pop one in your mouth.
You wear a self-satisfied smirk with flair.
We aren't dressed for High Tea on The Veranda,
you opted for Down and Dirty.





You look up and point at the ceiling painted a blue to match the sky.
Would you believe it is to keep the wasps from building nests in the eaves?
They see the blue and think they are out in the open.
It is clear by your expression you don't believe it for a minute, but it's true.
Jeans and sneakers fade from view--
tis easy to imagine long gowns, a velvet shawl,
and two waist-coated gentlemen patiently awaiting us,
as they casually lean on the railing, brandy snifters in hand.
Your eyes glaze over as you step back a hundred years or so.
A great hoof paws the ground and we walk, oh so elegantly,
down the wide, blazingly white painted steps, past where once
stood a gazebo, Somewhere in Time.





Back in the carriage, we climb up the hill, Dray and Barney
breaking into a trot, bells singing.
"Have you ever been kissed by a butterfly?" asks Friedrich.
He drops us off outside the Butterfly House
and we enter to flights of fancy.
Magenta swallow-tails sweep and swoop, lime-ly translucent
green-backed Monarchs flutter by dancing with a kaleidoscope
of varied-blues. One lands on your nose and you stare at it
in crossed-eyed delight.



Onward, we walk now, having bid farewell to our dapper driver.
We wend down towards Arch Rock. You take photos and muse
on words to form a poem, letting the words tumble from your lips
having no paper. The sounds drift off over the water,
through the bridge of stone. We wander over
to a thirty-something-ish woman. Bare toes peek out
from under her wrinkled skirt of a thousand hues
that somehow matches her turquoise tank, her wide-brimmed
and beribboned hat. Ribbons dance gaily in the breeze.
A thin paintbrush is nipped in small opalesque teeth
as with another, she is rendering a watercolor of sailboats
skittering across the Straights.



Down and around the stone-edged path to Fort Mackinac,
to cannons poised but silent,
to greens where bagpipers and drummers
skirl Amazing Grace as young girls hop and swirl
a traditional Scottish dance.
Shrugging, we join in.
Spinning, kicking up our heels and doing an improv clog
until we collapse, laughing, on the grass.
I lie back, letting the beams
raying through the sunset-tinged clouds do the dancing.
They are far more eloquent
than I. Lights flicker down in town as we now peruse the quaint shoppes.
You try a bite of Mackinac Double Chocolate fudge--
moan in ecstasy
and buy a pound.



The horn of the last ferry out wails.
We huddle beneath red woolen blankets;
the wind blows cold off Lake Michigan.
Stars peek between gathering clouds
as the last of day glows down to night.
I hope you have enjoyed our day as much as I.
You smile as you disappear to the west.