It started with a solitary swimmer in the middle of the lake. I watched the slender black body ripple the surface of the water, the white chest catching the light of the sun.  A common beauty on this lake where I am spending the week, but still a great gift to behold. On Monday I woke early to see a set of 6 swimmers making a lap around the perimeter of the lake, searching for fish. It was only 5:30 am and I had not thought to bring a camera. But, yesterday I had one poised and ready.

I heard the call of its lover from some unseen point across the lake. Turning my head with the loon’s to a song that belongs to night, laden with mystery and longing. There is nothing that stirs the cells of the heart quite like the lyrics of the loon. For that lingering moment we forget the present, and fall into a haunting past of something not quite lost within us.

There was no answer from the swimmer I watched, only a few moments of silence. Then, suddenly, the absent lover appeared on the edge of my vision, and what followed was a dance of reunion so beautiful I could only give thanks for this beautiful gift as I clicked away.

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Sometimes we are allowed to bear witness to the exquisite dance of nature in a way that humbles us and fills us with a renewed faith in our beautiful world. This was such a moment.