Dave Bonta's "Winter harbor" is a tiny poem that captures a single, striking scene and the feeling it sparks. The first stanza is pure image: ice in a harbor, glittering and shifting with light, "freights" the yachts. It's an unusual verb. Freight is what ships carry, yet here the ice is the one doing the carrying, holding the boats in place as if they were cargo. The ice isn't dull or dead, either. It is "busy with light," alive with flashes and reflections.
The second stanza turns from the scene to the speaker. They feel a "wild joy" at "this other life." The poem doesn't say whose life that is, so it could mean the strange, hushed life of the harbor in winter, or a different way of living that the sight suggests. Either way, the mood is quiet but thrilled. The short lines and stillness of the picture make the sudden burst of joy feel all the more surprising and sincere.