A Glossary of Fog
Nov 23 2009


I drive
in the clutch of night
through pea-soup fog.
Half my body hangs out the window
in the goose-bump air
as if about to launch,
eyes glued to the shoulder
— on a gravel road, nothing marked
in the-middle-of-nowhere darkness.

It dropped down
from a cold wet sky
in the dead of night,
like mid-Atlantic
like bad film noir.
Or a bachelor uncle from out of town,
settling-in
for an unexpected visit.
No choice
but carry on.

In a town like this
we need a glossary of fog —
the cold black water,
the warm moist air
that funnels-up from the tropics,
conspiring together
too often.
Stranded again,
perched on the northern edge
of this inland lake,
a backwater place
a thousand miles away
from everywhere.

I find it comforting
enclosed in fog like this —
soaking-up the light
as if it never existed,
making sound play tricks,
turning the world so small
it feels nearly liveable.
As simple as an arm’s length
in any direction,
a candy-floss confection
of white.

The foghorn wails
out on the sea-wall
of the inner harbour.
The crunch of gravel
as I crawl along
no faster than walking.
The concentration is exhausting,
driving through fog like this.
When the road dips
and the fog suddenly lifts
for an instant
of brilliant clarity.
Until I plunge back in —
a solid wall of mist
swallowing-up the world.

Each feeling his way home
on gravel roads, and black-top.
All alone in the fog,
so slow
the world might well have stopped.