Tabernacled under the spreading sky,
we would play on the rock formations
in a now-logged Jackson County woods. 

To us kids, this shack was both primitive
and paradise–we’d have to ford a river

to reach the winding access road.

Deeper into the woods: ghosts of homesteads

with stacked stone fences, wetland marshes,
a snapshot of the past hundred years in situ. 

I’ve tried all my life to find a way back

to this place: the shack and outhouse, the city
of boulders. I call their names:

The Chimney Stone. The Fort. Mermaid Lagoon. 
The Car. These, and other gifts of glacial magnitude,
our little country scattered along the forest ground.