Fog

"Let us go in; the fog is rising." ~Emily Dickinson

       We returned home from a vacation in Texas, a second summer of sorts, to full Autumn here in Arkansas. The night we returned was cold enough to send me scurrying for flannel PJ's to slip into before we even unpacked. Leaves had turned, and the fall garden that Hubby planted was suddenly full of young lettuce, radish, and green onions for the picking. And we returned to the fogs of fall.
     My granny always said that how ever many heavy fogs you have in October was how many heavy snows you would have for the winter. I can never keep count. I only know that I woke up one morning after we came home and the world was wreathed in white, like swirls of smoke from a dragon's nostrils- only clear and cool and fresh. I ran to grab my camera and stepped out into the mists....

When I was in 3rd grade our reader had a great story in it. Do you remember any of the stories from your old readers? This was about a young boy who lived on the New England coast during the Revolutionary War. Huge, obscuring fogs would sweep in from the ocean and effectively cut off all ordinary life. People would stay inside and not venture out because there were bogs and cliffs and it was hard to even put one foot in front of the other enough to get across the street. But the boy didn't see it that way. He always went out in the fog; first he memorized the number of steps from house to store, then store to stable, until he was able to walk out to the very cliffs, finding his way by the various swells and hollows of the ground. And then, one day, he was walking and voices came out of the fog. (This would raise the hair on my neck..) He froze and listened. It turned out it wasn't ghosts or goblins, but British soldiers who had made land and were waiting for the fog to thin so they could surround the small village. The boy rushed back and told the men gathered in the store. They were alarmed, but did not know what they could do. Of course the boy offered to lead them. (Don't you just love the old stories that had morals? Courageousness had nothing to do with size, etc.) Instead of the fog thinning and the British marching to the village, they found themselves surrounded, all due to a boy who found fascination in the fog instead of fearfulness.

     I have always found the fog enchanting. When you were in school did you read the poem by Carl Sandburg about how fog "comes in on little cat feet"? I enjoyed the imagery in the poem, but I never felt that way about the mists here. In an old fairytale book of my daddy's there is a picture of night descending over the forest. Night is a human-like figure that sweeps through the air, hands outstretched, and black cloak billowing behind. As the cloak falls, darkness descended, and Night continues its passage over the earth. Maybe I read too many fairytales as a child (and I still do), but, as much joy as I take in the scientific, my mind always goes back to these stories. How does the wind blow? My mind conjures up  pictures from "The Weary Traveler" and I see a white, chubby cheeked cloud on one side blowing at the man, who wraps his cloak more tightly, and a dark, lean faced cloud on the right, cheeks filled to bursting to blast at the man next. To me, that is where the wind comes from. 
     So to my mind the fog is a figure in smokey robe, drifting over treetop, snagging on branches, pooling in hollows, but not quite reaching the ground at his feet. Instead of cat feet my fog has fingers, long slim ones that explore chimney flues, probe at cracks in doors and windows, and a breath that puffs in tiny shreds through keyholes. Creeping, wandering, curious, knowing the short time he has before the sun burns his cloak to tatters and he retreats once more.

    The picture above shows each tiny net of spider's web limned with dew and fog. This is what the old poets would write about when they said the fields were filled with "fairy floss".  Fog makes the mundane magical.

 Then as I was walking through the field the cows began to come out of the wood.

 I began to see strange dark swirlings at their feet as they stepped. It almost looked like bats. Okay, it was pretty close to Halloween!

     As I got closer I heard the singing...yes, singing. It was a flock of blackbirds, held near the earth in fog-bound confusion. Lots of people despise blackbirds as "trash" birds. I say they have never heard them sing. Early morning as dawn is just tinging the blackness to the grey of ashes, the burning of night, the blackbirds will sing. And again at dusk, when they go to roost, great unruly piles of them clinging to twig and branch. It is a communal singing, yet each has their own unique part, and it all blends and rises up to the sky, their ode to the birth and dying of the day.
     As the cows stepped unperturbed, the birds would lift and swirl, singing like sirens to plodding terrestrials with ears stoppered with clay.

     When I couldn't stand it anymore, I went too close...........and they lifted and turned, wheeling in unison like a multi-pieced whirlwind and lighted in a bare tree.

     Their presence, and singing, were not appreciated by the tree's prior occupant, an old crow. So now the song turned to shrill taunts and whistles, while the crow cawed his annoyance at the intrusion.

     The fog lasted longer than any I had seen before. I began wandering at 7:00 and by 10:00 in the morning the land was still hazed, the sun making an exhaustive effort to chase away the interloper. Finally there was only a fine shimmer of dew left behind.

So, do fogs foretell the winter, or are they only reminders that we have no control over the earth and its mysteries? This year the persimmon seeds cut open to show a spoon shape. Grandpa R.V. says this means wetness. Either the shoveling of snow, or digging out of mud. Or maybe it is actually Mr. Wooly-worm who knows. He is fat and his coat is thick this year......
     Whatever may come I hope we can find the wonder and beauty in it.

"...the whole hill-back was one billowy, white ocean....." 

Emily Bronte "Wuthering Heights"