The Silence Between Notes of a Song

An Apostle Islands postcard

I am caught in a line from an old poem. Written decades ago, long before the Little Dipper, before I knew anything about the Apostle Islands or Lake Superior, or much about anything for that matter. Just a young poet’s musings. Yet even then I sensed there were places in the world in between, places of both beauty and power. In those places, I wrote, a person “could find everything of importance - the silence between notes of a song.”

I am drifting in such a place this morning: to the west is a line of thunderstorms so distant they sparkle with soundless lightning. To the east, there is the dorsal fin of a rain squall working its way down the north end of Madeline Island. Where I am, no rain, no storm-roiled waters. It is as if this spot is the center of something, the eye, a place of calm while all around me the world spins its dizzying dance.

In the eye of whatever it is, I shut the engine down and drift, hoping to prolong the respite, the pause, and let the world spin around me for just a moment while I listen to “the silence between notes of a song.”

— Jeff Rennicke (all photography by the author unless otherwise noted)

These Apostle Islands postcards every Sunday are an offshoot of the “Little Dipper” blog. Paid subscribers to the blog also receive an original, full-length illustrated essay delivered right to their inbox every Wednesday. Subscribe. Come along for the ride aboard the “Little Dipper.”

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