Long hair, long gun
Fingernails pulled out
by Mohawks
*
(The long
canoes)
“Birch bark
and white Seder
for the ribs”
*
Through all this granite land
the sign of the cross
Beauty: impurities in the rock
*
And at the blue ice superior spot
priest-robed Marquette grazed
“Beauty: impurities in the rock” says Niedecker. We have no pure way to translate the human experience. Poetry, as much hope as we place in it, will still always fall short. Still, Niedecker reminds us that artists can take comfort in the fact that beauty will be found in the imperfection. This is certainly the case in “Lake Superior”. 
    This is also to say that impurities are what give gemstones their color. Quartz with iron will have a red tint, quartz with chlorine will have a green tint, quartz with copper will have a blue tint, etc…
Lake Superior