Am meisten gelesen ▸
W. H. Davies
I saw the fog grow thick,
Which soon made blind my ken;
It made tall men of boys,
And giants of tall men.
It clutched my throat, I coughed;
Nothing was in my head
Except two heavy eyes
Like balls of burning lead.
And when it grew so black
That I could know no place,
I lost all judgment then,
Of distance and of space.
The street lamps, and the lights
Upon the halted cars,
Could either be on earth
Or be the heavenly stars.
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.
all is one in fog
a fine wool
the grove like a riff
half-way to the ear
foggy morning
I find myself alone
with a cold pie
I wake to a slow dripping
outside my window,
click on the news,
then remember
the recycling has to go out.
My feet find
the path without
a flashlight. I wade
through faintly visible fog,
a soundproof room
inhabited by the automatic
lusts of insects.
Halfway to the road,
I come to a halt.
There in the darkness
at my feet,
a morning-fresh aroma
from the compost
steaming in the cool air
i descend the mountain
just so i can climb it
yet again
through fog
as soft as the moss
acorns clattering down
the sun’s already out
in the valley for
the annual farm show
and above the gap
the first broad-winged
hawks of the day
spiral high around
the mountain hollow’s
yellow meadow
thrumming under another
morning fog
we curl around
our private griefs
before mourning becomes
a form of conformity
recall the headlonging
rush of young buds
the grand flourishes
the common sense we made
invasive weeds freed
from all native constraints
to wander the earth
planting our flags
My favourite ridgetop tea-drinking spot is quieter each time I visit. Gone (or hiding while they molt) are the nesting tanagers and warblers. A wood pewee still calls, and a blue-headed vireo interjects at one point, but that’s about it. A nearby black gum has begun to color up, anticipating early migration and the need for signal flags saying FREE LUNCH.
fog walker
the millipede’s carpet
of legs
through gaps in the hills
a river of fog
and me here on this wren’s powerline right-of-way
eating lowbush blueberries
We didn’t say goodbye
with our hands but
with naked branches.
(And anyway it was
more of a hello.)
You undid me the way
a fire plays a harp,
the strings singing as
they snap. (Each note
can only sound once:
an excellent discipline!)
They are still together,
your smoke & my fog.
(I feed them wood.)
The soup I had for lunch
continues to bubble.
Outside there’s fog & rain,
I’m sitting straight in my chair
reading from a screen
& when I hear a gurgle
I look out at the drainpipe,
unsure for a moment
whether the soup is in me
or I am in the soup.
I would like a recipe
for disorientation,
a map for getting lost.
It might say, Dissolve
each point of reference.
Bring to a boil.
If the barrel rolls
and goes unmissed until spring
was it ever lost?
In wisteria,
the remains of a feline
she dies when we die
Hot sauce on pizza
the man’s wife died this morning,
chatter in Russian
The lost magician,
our supervisor runs out
to give directions.
I had not wanted
to give up on this ball-point,
almost New Year’s.
Black dog on a leash