A Brief Fog

A Brief Fog

(“By his knowledge the deep waters were divided, and the skies dropped dew.” Proverbs 3:20)

Whatever ideas I had when I awoke, half of them have disappeared with the dawn,
and the fog has cleared to prod a new list of names,
a package of choruses and refrains,
and the same old untamed habits that keep me isolated
on the island inhabited by my sweet wife,
two dogs (one our own, and one a sometimes visitor, our daughter’s very own
“Daisy”; a sweet Chiweenie),
one cat and

My pain.

It visited one Thanksgiving Day, forced the couch underneath me,
with the weight of an iron TopHat, I stayed flat on my back and missed
the first invitation for turkey, gravy and the best homemade cranberry sauce;
and six Thanksgivings has come and gone; the uninvited visitor is now
a nuisance and not a guest.

Days like these I would drive to the refuge, watch for the deer,
follow the lines of seals and sea lions swimming upstream.
Like fallen logs their nostrils bounce above the water line,
sniffing like dogs for a bone. Sniffing for salmon to bring
home (hated by the fisherman who net the salmon to bring
home.)