Austere spaces may be read as easily as any book; indeed, books offer a blankness, a bleakness in the shape of bleached pulp, cut into thin and flimsy rectangular planes. One learns of this necessity when one learns literacy. The blank page is what allows words to shape themselves into sensations, colors, moods and characters. I walk—alone—when contemplating stories. Sometimes, when time and circumstance allow, I walk along the shore of Lake Michigan, listening to shore stories. I was near the lake, recently. As I walked, I discovered an eccentric preservationist, tending a patch of wild land. I’d known of the wild patch for quite some time. The two-acre grassland preserve is a page of a different sort: no longer blank. It is still unreadable. I cannot speak the language of grass, and so I cannot read it either. Nature, after all, writes Her most interesting tales in the very structure of things that live, grow, and die. There is a story, lurking on the shore of Pratt Beach. The sands bordering Lake Michigan have their own non-grassy tales to tell as well; and they record things, mark things, but the wind erases such testaments, sometimes as soon as they are written. Birds sign their transient autographs in the miniature dunes. Their footprints are distinct, after all…and they reveal things to anyone who might be able to read them. Humans leave footprints as well: narrative texts as short-lived as those left by birds. I left footprints, and so did the eccentric preservationist walking with me. The eccentric preservationist told me about the various grasses at home in this part of the Midwestern USA; he described each of them, but never revealed their names. He told me of the trees that will grow, once the grasses have anchored enough sand. He told me of a volunteer…a plant at home in the preserve. A cactus. It grows there (even now) by pure chance. Though native to this region, such a cactus (prickly pear?) now requires human assistance if it is to grow in its native, lake-bordering sand; it must be transplanted and guarded against removal. Such a cactus, when discovered in the wild, is often transported into flowerpots at home in kitchen windows. The cactus I saw, the one pointed out to me had simply grown on its own. It didn’t seem to care that someone might come along, dig it up, and place it in a flower pot in a totally foreign—and perhaps inappropriate—kitchen window I have forgotten its location. The cactus (a prickly pear?) is a small, green whisper written on the shore of Lake Michigan. I cannot read its fullest meaning, but I suspect it has something to do with survival, adaptation, stubbornness, and a willingness to live in a half-dehydrated state. I rather like that cactus, though I cannot remember its location. I cannot return to its spot on the beach and read its presence. It doesn’t matter, however. I was able to read (and capture) something else. I saw a thing written in the wind itself, something written in water, in clouds, and in the motion of a woman walking her dog. I saw something else written in the presence of fishermen on a pier, storing their refreshments on the base and in the strut-work of a navigational buoy. I heard the speech of characters, indistinct sounds: the lisping whisper of sand, and the faint slap-slap-slap of waves angling toward the shore. I heard little else, and—for a moment—I simply listened and drew my camera from my pocket. I snapped a picture, of a text as only Nature and circumstance might write it. I captured a bleak narrative, and I rather like the story it implies. Look carefully: the story above is written in wind, water, sand, people and a dog. It’s likely to be a completely different story when you read it again. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great weekend.