In Northern Michigan

Dream if you want for me to carry on
If you could break it all down for me
I could believe you
Dream if you want for me to carry on
If you could break it all down for me

I remember you and I in Northern Michigan,
The color in between the leaves,
Black tourmaline, blue-green,
Like some bioluminescent thing
Come up from the black of the sea.
The purl of the breeze whispering,
I remember how you stood at the water's edge
While I was at the line of the trees
And you waded out patiently down,
Ever-darkening your step,
The shadows grew around your feet,
Your ankles and knees.

I remember trembling
Nights you tunneled inward, anxious unto panic,
I was that watcher on the ridge standing on the dune edge faced west
And the night sloped down before me, like a challenge from myth,
But I never moved an inch.
Backlit by the campfire blazing,
Heaving in a harsh spring wind,
Sparks thrown into the low branches to fade
While you floated into water like a ghost ship, sinking.
Days we breezed through everything,
Laughed through whole mornings at home,
And out warm nights running from sleep;
Days like good dreams always familiar, surreal,
The sun in the trees bleeds marigold and wine.
Life, all of its languages here,
Love spoke in tongues, loudly or hushed,
Too much of you at once is just enough at all times,
My life in the light of you, I remember everything.

Dream if you want for me to carry on
You could be like a body in the sea
You could go slowly sink on into nothingness,
Or you could float like a lantern in a breeze,
You could freeze out of focus on a movie screen,
Film careening from the reel,
Or you could stay for an ovation when the credits roll,
Focused face right in the center of the frame, you never know.
I heard the sound of my feet before I felt them pound sand,
I heard only my own hard heartbeat in my head,
There was no sound.
I saw the water to your knees, then to your neck,
Above your head, I swore you'd drowned,
I watched you swim out, I only watched you wade in
And panicked when I lost you,
Sprinting now downward to find you back,
As if you even needed me or asked.
Worry always myself, too much for your old sadness.
Worry until I panic, tumble to the open shoreline,
Kept running toward water alone,
The waves against my chest deafening or only your soft laughter in me.