From the Balcony of the Ingram Hacienda

Rosemary Du Mont

The pre-dawn horizon is bright and clear

I look down at  

Boats floating like islands, mirrored in the still water

There are mountains at the water’s edge

That  look like a row of dark jagged buildings

Whose reflections serve the sea as hanging gardens

A quarter moon-shaped dark rock protrudes from the depths

I am told that it is filled with pelicans

I can only imagine, for I cannot see them on land

But I see them soaring in the limitless sky

A dozen birds scatter and return to their island home below

They startle my heart

Now comes the sun, out of the low hanging mist

A flush of white cloud and red cloud dawning from behind a mountain peak

Soon the air is ablaze with all shades of red and orange

Brilliant tumbling cloud  fragments

I am drowning in the sky

While worldly matters may take their turn,

Ancient, modern, to and fro,

The sea, the mountains, the sunrise,  have no ending time

Changeless in their glory.