The Calm of This Sunrise Scene

thunder above, thunder below

Beaconsfield, Quebec — Photos by Jonathan Potter ⓒ 2024

The calm of this sunrise scene
masks the shock, terror, and laughter
that lingers, muted, in the dawn.
The quiet boats here anchored
contain a cargo of trembling
carried over from the big bang.

A calamity of wealth
afflicts the shopping cart of dawn:
the remembrance of the fading
season, remembered as if
gone even before it has left,
loss and grief anticipated.

Yet in the fading echo
of the explosion of summer
there is a substratum of mirth,
a settling of the earth
into a placid smile and hum
and heart vibrating like a drum.

The harbor's undulations
and the way the boats bob in the waves
tug at the harbormaster's heart
and incite the thought that we
are all the same harbormaster
and the harbor and the sunrise.

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