Poetry from the book {The Lion and the Sun} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas

 It is a strange stark beauty, dark and jagged rocks, cobble stone, lava, and cinder beaches

It looks like a giant ate a pile of bricks and spit it out to make a beach that is only partially kind to little boats like mine

A tour boat pens me in against fallen jagged  boulders where the dark castle sits above

A pile of black rocks stands just above the water line looking like the spine of an ancient sturgeon

Golden yellow lichen pock the granite creating a fools gold effect

An old friend Sun and Rain plays with me on Superior

Such beauty are the sheets of tears that fall from the lusty clouds

You are in the hands of the water god now, he gives you hell, hope, and mercy

A plant pushes its way up from the hard granite and sets a flower of orange and yellow

I am sleeping on a ledge with granite for a bed

I am in constant pain but that is my new life in old age

Summer is soon leaving and you can feel the cold crisp of the air

The November gale will rock and rage and throw boats against its rocky shore

What a perfect place to build a castle

The castle of many colored stones gets licked by waves and slowly eaten by the cold storm of ice

I'm in Two Harbors eating at Judy's Café, eating my grilled cheese sandwich

I am surrounded by noisy people who carry their homes on their backs and laugh at my backpacking tent that doesn't quite fit in with their camping etiquette

I build a nest, I go to bed, I sleep through the noise of a thousand motorcycles and crying little kids

Morning comes and I watch the sun rise as pretty as any sunset.

Poetry from the book {The Lion and the Sun} by Artist Troy Richard Thomas