Watching the Fog Lift
somewhere on this fog-shrouded sea a channel buoy’s admonitory moan speaks of nearby hidden shoals its rocks amidst swirling tide a guide & a warning a cry as if grieving with each wave for those lost to an unknown grave
cloaked in fog a lobster boat throttles up departing out of Machiasport in the direction of Libby Island Light to pull its traps in Englishman Bay where during the revolution privateers harassed British men-of-war
slipstreaming the foaming wash of its sternwake scattering schools of pogies navigate shadowed depths where dappled sunlight dances with shimmering new dimensions to the tidal underbelly
a colony of gulls wing above the beach in diffused light of early morning searching the ebbing stream margins for schools of mackerel & herring the days first meal loudly cawing squabbling over perceived territories while fending off a lone osprey
flashing wings to signal the others swooping down quickly snatching unsuspecting prey from the shallows others kiting ambushing insects on the wing & paying little attention to the fog’s presence as it silently comes & goes descending & lifting somewhere off in the distance
yet in the nearby beyond fog begins to lift slowly at first then quickly disappearing only to return again out of nowhere as when Sandburg described the morning fog a century ago hovering over his city my native city silent stealthy vapors condensing in the salt air masterly advection as warm air passes over Fundy’s cool waters as if on cats feet arriving unannounced
ragged tree tops float above the fog mist brooding over offshore islands a mirage perhaps horizons vanishing sky & seas melding into a thickening fret tree tops suspended in mid air where once entire islands lay anchored to the earth’s firmament sweet bouquet of pine blending with a briny tang of the morning seas
now the sun’s early rays warm my face kneaded by the sea breeze’s soft fingers gone are the mysteries guarded by the fog its presence articulated by dreams of murmuring trees touched by the winds telling their own tales real & imaginary recollections of isolation & gloom cold & damp realities of fated change
Pumpkin Tattoo
I am feeling autumnal
traveling those Pennsylvania back roads a dozen times or more I wander over the Brandywine’s tranquil oxbows looking high & low for the Hill Girt Farm thinking October’s flaming cedars would lead me to that elusive pumpkin patch you told me where to go, when to turn & where but where is it I am lost
it was far easier to find this old house among Cushing’s saltwater farms here on the foggy margin on Hathorn Point we stare deep into the St. George River studying the subtleties of the blue distant sea the smoky approaches of a sou’wester it helps having you here this time around you who know all the stories of his time here you called him Old Bones he wanted you to & you recall him in his younger days as he wandered these dry, dusty upstairs rooms now we stare through twelve-paned windows at the field where Christina slowly crab-walked home from the small graveyard on the point to this weather-worn clapboard house grown winter gray-scarred & summer burnished
her troublesome bones now rest there on the point in hard-scrabble soil these past six decades the day before they buried her he returned here in January darkness, wandering these empty rooms trying hard to ignore the clatter of the jackhammer opening her frozen grave perhaps pondering that day when frost would heave his own bones next to hers now I watch you wandering through this old & desiccated house past the long cold Glenwood beyond the blue door scratched & rubbed by age I see the pumpkin tattoo etched above your tail bone the one you wanted since you were a young girl wandering those Pennsylvania byways in autumn reminding me of my own search for Hill Girt Farm that pumpkin patch with the haunting faces carved in stacked jack-o-lanterns their bright orange-slitted eyes & tilted smiles glowing as if beacons from beyond that grave on the point, the old man’s bones home to rest though his soul still wanders
in these darkening upstairs rooms where we sit quietly together we watch the gentle sea breezes trifle with the same moldering muslin through which he watched Christina drag herself through the summer timothy & with each hint of wind touching our faces the dust of eternity is settling over us
Steven B. Rogers is a historian and research consultant based in Washington, DC. He is the editor of A Gradual Twilight: An Appreciation of John Haines published by CavanKerry Press in 2004. His historical and personal essays, literary criticism, and poetry have been widely published, including in past numbers of Gargoyle. He and his wife reside in historic Mount Rainier, Maryland.