We sailed our ore boat
East toward storm
She twist’d and she creaked
From dusk toward morn
The big lake angry
‘Twas rough indeed
Rough as sin
But for “fifteen more miles”
Our families morn
The Three Sisters did us in.
tom tenbrunsel
Carl Sandburg Writer 2023
Author’s Note: Loving Gordon Lightfoot’s song and the legend of the Edmund Fitzgerald, this poem is a snapshot of that tragedy. The photo is of a piece of driftwood I picked up out of Lake Superior on a family trip there once. The driftwood reminded me of The Three Sisters (a series of three gigantic waves) that broke simultaneously onto the deck of the Fitzgerald, probably sinking the ore laden boat.
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