Now that the dark is hanging around a bit more in the morning, I don’t really notice the outside work until I step onto the back porch. Last week, I left the house early, about 6:15 a.m. and as I pulled out of the driveway realized that there are a lot of fog. Living in the city as I do, this is an unusual occurrence and combined with the dark and traffic-less streets, was quite eerie.
As I was driving along (pretty slowly), it made me think about how often I’ve seen fog described in poetry. Of course, the most famous is probably Carl Sandberg:
Fog
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
And I also remember a couple of different fog poems by Sara Teasdale that I like:
Gray Fog
A FOG drifts in, the heavy laden
Cold white ghost of the sea—
One by one the hills go out,
The road and the pepper-tree.
I watch the fog float in at the window
With the whole world gone blind,
Everything, even my longing, drowses,
Even the thoughts in my mind.
I put my head on my hands before me,
There is nothing left to be done or said,
There is nothing to hope for, I am tired,
And heavy as the dead.
White Fog
Heaven-invading hills are drowned
In wide moving waves of mist,
Phlox before my door are wound
In dripping wreaths of amethyst.
Ten feet away the solid earth
Changes into melting cloud,
There is a hush of pain and mirth,
No bird has heart to speak aloud.
Here in a world without a sky,
Without the ground, without the sea,
The one unchanging thing is I,
Myself remains to comfort me.
A quick search on the internet turns up tons of fog poems. I haven’t done any research whatsoever but I wonder if there are more fog poems than thunderstorm poems or sunshine poems?
Then as I kept driving, I realized that I don’t know one darn SONG about fog.
Anybody?
