Welcome to Mary MacGowan's Frozen Lake Blog

I live on a lake in northern Michigan where one can seek out many of my poems -- in the summer months floating amongst the loving loons and in the winter held safe within the blue ice.

Thanks for checking out my blog -- here's my first poem:


Corkscrew Curving Country Roads



I have just enough faith
in the mapmaker
and the dotted-line painter.
In the signmaker and the one
who puts up the signs.

In the placement
of fences and mile markers.
I believe in mathematicians
who calculate speed limits
and the grade of the road.

In the use of salt in winter.
That pedestrians will stay
to the side, and in the prudent
rights and lefts of other drivers.
I’m reasonably certain gravity

will continue to bind us
to cobblestone, asphalt,
gravel, dirt. It’s true so far.
And love. I believe in love,
I’m not sure why –

but that’s how love is,
it recklessly pulls us
in and out of harm’s way
and leads us
without mercy

or understanding
but with great competence
to East Bay beach
wrapped in an old quilt.

Across the street
a rickety river boat
at an old mini-golf place
with windows, designed
to look broken, broken.

Rain comes harder.
A lone seagull
walks ahead of me,
glancing back,
his shiny black eyes
good in the rain.

published in Poets' Night Out, 2007