Fog
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on
This afternoon my husband and I went to see American Sniper at the theatre at Broadway at the Beach, one of our favorite places to go to the movies while we are here.
After the movie and an early dinner at Joe's Crab Shack, we stopped at Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast treats for tomorrow morning, then drove back to the condo on North Oceans Blvd. Suddenly we noticed a white haze rolling around the buildings, drifting over the street, and impeding the view of what was ahead. The closer we came to our condo, we noticed that the top floors had vanished. The fog was thick.
The view from our balcony is limited now. We can see the sand, the cute little shelters for sunbathers, and a few people. We can see the shoreline. Other than that....fog.
My husband wanted to go for a walk, and we may do that in an hour or so. However, I am not a fan of being in fog and not knowing where I am or what I am close to. Too many times have I driven in the country from our house to my in-laws' house, counting telephone poles as I go, creeping along looking for county road signs, and rolling down windows just to hear any oncoming traffic because I surely can't see any vehicles through the white cottony mess.
I am sure the fog will eventually leave, just like in Sandburg's poem. Silently. Looking over the shore line. Moving on.
Here in Lafayette we had a particularly foggy evening last week. It was so dense that I was afraid to drive home, though I did make it, and the next morning as I was walking to work I kept having the image of an old man with a hook hand in a rain slicker and yellow plastic cap like in the movie "I Know What You Did Last summer". He never did pop out…
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I found myself thinking about mental fog because I've noticed in recent months that my grandmother's memory isn't quite what it used to be. You know, how mental fog sneaks up silently and sits patiently watching as we flounder to make sense of what is happening in the immediate, but instead we only find confusion. I see her struggle some days to put two ideas together, this woman who I could get nothing by in my youth because she was sharp as a tack. It really gave insight into the poem, to know that there are other types of fog which can plague humanity…
It was extremely foggy here in Walton, the town where I live, as well. I was at work when it crept up. Sandburg's poem really hits the ball out of the park. It's such a perfect description of how fog seems to creep up...and then creep away. The line "The fog comes on little cats feet" clearly means that it comes silently without you noticing. We were so busy at work that night that by the time I got to look out of a window the fog was already there, obscuring even the house across the street from view. I didn't know it had come until I turned around and saw it, much like Sandburg's poem says. I almost got lost driving home, even though I only live three miles away from work, because the fog was so thick I couldn't see the road before my eyes and missed my turn. It silently moved on around noon the next day, just to roll back in the next night. It is amazing when you can see the words of a poem come to life right before your eyes. I have a feeling that this poem is always going to come to my mind on foggy evenings from now on. Good thing it's one of the poems I've come to love during this Pod.
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