My winter writing place is a small library table next to a leaky window. My black cat usually manages to squeeze her furry self between my teacup and laptop. A painting by Margo Hoff of the lake in winter hangs over my desk. Cobalt blue, its primary color. I live in a 19th century building, the oldest dorm on campus. It is a quiet place. I have teaching days and writing days. When I write at this desk, everything else hits the floor. First year papers, student poems, bills to pay, recipes, lists: the paper miscellany I seem to pile up in the academic year.

In summer, I write in an old cottage on Madeline Island that faces six of the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior. I usually write upstairs (first draft) under the skylight. From my desk (an old sewing machine with a top), I can see the bald eagle fly over at noon—her shadow first, then, the full soar. Otherwise, I don’t see much. Good for “privacy” of the muse.

I make revisions out on the screen porch. A pair of phoebes nests in the upper right hand corner of the porch. The male flies back and forth bringing food. A lot of singing goes on around 4 p.m.

The screen porch is a distracting place: boats, woodpeckers, branches breaking (bears at lunch). The woods murmur, even seem to hum on a warm day. The summer sun comes off the lake in layers. I try to attend its edge, its energy, its sprawl: except there were light, there could be no shadow.

I need shadow to make. I need light to make.

Careful work, this.

In late afternoon, I head out in my small red kayak. Moving alone on the surface of the great lake, I know what I am given. I have to use all my strength and wit to read the waves and push through them. Out there, I know I am almost invisible. From shore, if anyone is watching, I will seem to disappear. I must follow the pattern of the currents in order to move. When the waves are big, my boat slips between them. If I can manage my strength properly, my little red kayak will seem to skim through the wind. Things I want to name step forward and ask for measure size and weight. My small red kayak is the place of provision.

I return to my desk. The summer desk. The winter desk.

I can pick my way through radiance with dirty shoes. Careful work, this.

Eva Hooker is professor and writer in residence at Saint Mary’s College in Indiana. Her poems have appeared in The New England Review, AGNI, and Terrain.org. Her poem “Way Out Where” was published in the November/December 2011 issue of Orion.