The Lake at First Light: Mirror water and a single loon

Edwin Marsh

The lake goes still just before the sun clears the trees, and for a few minutes the water holds the whole sky without a ripple. This is time spent in that hush: the soft creak of a dock, the far-off call of a single loon, the slow arrival of light across mirror water. Nothing to accomplish, nowhere to be. Just a quiet stretch of morning, offered whole, for whenever you need to remember what calm actually feels like.