After a photograph by Northscapes Photography, Presque Isle, ME

The driftwood is a hand grasping something
then letting it go. Stars scatter above
as if this hand, not God’s,

had tossed them into the morning sky.
Up there, they grow brighter. They will
fade once lemon sunrise washes away night.

Yet there is light now. Stars band
together into the Milky Way. Clouds form
like clusters of maple leaves clinging to water.

The water is itself. It reflects nothing.
It rests beneath the sky, awaiting sunrise
and its long day as a sparkling mirror.

It contains everything: cans, rocks, hornpout, weeds.
Before dawn its splash on the shore
is quieter. No birds break its surface.

Across the lake, someone’s car rounds the curve
from the next town nearer to sunrise.
Its light is a fallen star. Soon others will follow.