Words for Fog

Near the Gulf Coast we live with fog intimately.

It's vocabulary and syntax we have acquired

As much as Eskimos are fluent in the tongue of snow.

When the sun emerges above this gauzy veil

The ground fog glows like God's grace

As if it were emitting its own light.

Close to where the Brazos meanders to its mouth

I watch a wintry dawn burn off sheets of haze

And lift them from high places and the highways.

I can taste the salty trace it leaves on my lips

As the remnant of a marine layer that moved inland

Dissolves into thin, ragged clouds scudding across

A faded morning star and tiny sliver of a rising mauve moon.

But still a thick white fleece of brume remains in low-lying places,

Covering rice fields, creek beds and bayous.

Stands of cypress and live oak become air-plants,

Or they have learned to levitate.

Anything that nudges above the white placid pond

Seems to hover, graceful as swans.

Cows heading out to pasture

Float like a john boat glides

With gentle rocking motion.

It's hard to tell what is moving and what is still:

Everything sways in this pool of impermanence.

written Feb. 2010-,Feb. 2011, ,published in Houston Poetry Fest Anthology 2012