for my son

Several winter storms broke off
the southern point like a finger of ice,
though Lake Erie’s waves dredge up
the lakebed and resuspend a shoreline.

Last year there was a marsh fire
that burned to its reflection.
This year the reeds and cattails
are born of ash and water.

Didn’t our bird sightings migrate,
the book of native plants grow wild,
the binoculars sprout antlers
and gaze back into us like a forest.

Whenever we return to the park
distance folds time into waves,
like any transoceanic migration
that erases its own path– we are here.