In the bright morning
sun of this other life
three swans lift with your delight
into the cool air above Sachem Pond.

Here, even your eyes have wings
and the sea behind you echoes
their thunderous thrum.

A gull pulls its shadow
across great rocks balanced
between the days, monuments
to the moment, poised
like the heron posed at pond’s edge.

At your feet, a constellation of stones
settles into the earthen sky.

Even now you know—you hope—
one day you’ll remember
this water, how it was broken
upon a stone, how the night came
and you imagined a fire blown
into cascading arcs of stars.