Fog
by R.E.
Slater
Fog slips in
unnoticed, breathless
veiling solitude’s cloaks of milky whites,
brushing cheeks and brows, wetted
upon shrouded
mist’s silent hush.
Wispy
filaments probe the atmospherics, listless
obscuring yellowing lamp globes in thickening
haze,
clothing woods and fields dressed in white,
drifting
somber paths
of vaporous stealth.
Dimly lit
homes recede from view, hidden
in greying worlds consuming sight,
bereft tall church spires yet retreating,
bowed
like penitents enfolded spectral passage.
Be still my
hurried heart, be still
on cat’s paws comes thy biding peace,
be not alone this covering night… rest,
rest
prayer’s misty
vapours ’neath the bidding lights.
R.E. Slater
October
25, 2011
Edited
March 1, 2018
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all rights reserved
AUTHOR’S NOTES
I thought to write “Fog” in a lisping hand conveying a fading intercourse between our everyday casual worlds of the present with the tympanous1 worlds of our own making, whether past, present or future. And I crafted it in a simple hand, not rushed, but not overplayed, so that it would drift from passage to passage, line to line, just as the fog would do as it morphs and lifts in its vapors.
I also subdued the coloration of the font with a deft brush of black-gray to project unconsciously into the poem a feeling for its subject. Though I did think to produce a more diminishing scale from a font of black to subtler grays but did not wish to break the reader's attention being given to the poem onto a periphery issue.
I also wanted to interplay the words “biding” and “bidding” between one another in the last verse just like a foggy haze would interplay between our lit worlds of perceived clarity and our shadowy worlds of unsolved tension. Biding subtends the meaning of abiding, remaining, staying somewhere, with someone, at one time or another; whereas bidding interplays the meaning of temporalness with the additional meaning of summoning or inviting someone somewhere to something at some time. In essence, the fog is a metaphor for our lives determining whether we stay in place or go forward; whether we drift along caught-up in the outplay of casual events; or, actively re-determining the stages of our conscious being, our social obligations, our future plans.
Of course, there are other elements within this poem which I wish to remain unstated so that the reader may determine themselves how to read its main constructions. Whether plainly, as can always be done with a poem, or with the subtlety fraught within its shrouded lines and shaded meanings. This I try to do with each of my poems, some with more success than others.
Lastly, because of my great respect for Carl Sandburg’s poem, Fog, which I originally read when as a young boy, I wanted to include a small homage to his poem by using the phrase “on cat’s paws” as a way of saying thank you for this delightful verse he had written. Which poem can never be improved upon, succinctly, efficiently, proficiently or otherwise, scribed as ever a poet could scribe his observations and affections....
Fog
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
- Carl Sandburg
R.E. SlaterThe fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
- Carl Sandburg
October 26, 2011
1tympany (defn) - excessive pride, arrogance, pretentiousness of style,
bombastic, turgidity, swollen, inflated, pompous
A separate commentary based upon this poem can be found here:
Devising a Meaning for David Guetta's, "Titanium ft. Sia" -
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