At the Cottage In the Morning

I like to wake up in the morning at the lake, I sleep out on the porch, on account of I hate snoring, so I can hear the tremelo of the daddy loon calling to the babies, and sometimes I just sit there and listen, to the kingfisher back in the channel, and the wet flop of the dogfish early on. If I listen closely, I can hear a woodpecker on the opposite shore, hammering away with its rock-hard beak. Then when I open my eyes, it's like looking at a fantasy painting, with pillars of steam rising from the lake, like fog from a Jurassic swamp in ancient times, with dragonflies zooming about in the mist, hunting the doodlebugs and damsonflies that hover obliviously over the glasslike water. The sun rises on the Eastern side, casting glories of light on the lake in its stillness. There are no boats out yet, it is far too still and placid. I can barely see from my place on the couch the mouth of the wide channel, and if I'm lucky I see the family of swans that lurk down there. I see a white dot drifting away, and smile when I know I at least saw one. Behind the island, which when I was little I called "City Crap", the remains of a bonfire are just damp piles of ashes, the remnants of a party someone threw the night before. I look back up to the sky, which has already turned purple and pink, and swing my legs out of the bed, and stretch, awaiting the minute I could slip into that clear, cool water.