A literal watercolour,
the reflections of trees
stretch from the opposite shore
in elongated pastel smudges –
a muted rainbow of greens
interspersed with thumb smears of black
that mark the dark spaces
between branches.
The weathered bone trunk
of a dead fir
becomes a line of dramatic white.
Beneath the liquid sky,
a bird swims across the water,
trailing a long, thin line
of diminishing light.
A gull calls out
and then answers its own cry,
the flight of white wings
above dark water.
Then the mountainside is suddenly alight
with the rising sun –
a wide, horizontal ribbon
boarded by shadowed trees beneath,
and the misted white above
of low-hanging clouds that obscure
a rock-crowned summit.
On the dark edge of the bay,
the smooth water
is broken by a surfacing fish
creating tiny, erratic rings
of reflected light.
Closer, where the sun
brightens the shoreline,
the ripples become concentric circles
of black.
With thumping wings,
a raven lands nearby,
and then the scratch
of talons on bark.
Moving in stop-action photography,
a purring hummingbird
spears dripping nectar.
A sleeping boat rumbles awake,
unties the lines of dreams,
then, bleary-eyed,
makes its way out
toward the open water.
Kenneth D. Reimer