Tule Fog

TWO POEMS

TULE FOG

Snow does not come here; there is no soft shutting

Of sight by the flowing veil of winter.

These trees blossoming untimely will never know

The shuddering embrace of ice; there will be no snow,

And no wind howling from frosted skies tonight will be

cutting

Their tender petals with the hail's sharp splinter.

But neither comes the sun; day after day the calling

Of buoys and vessels, strangely alone and uncertain,

Heralds the eternal fog draped on the sea,

Clothing the shivering hills in clammy misery,

Dissolving the vanished sky under the falling,

The land under the rising, of a grey relentless curtain.

The sea-gulls are frightened; they are lost and lonely.

They cry aloud but there is no answer.

Where is our green and golden planet? It is gone.

There will be no sunset as there was no dawn:

Tonight the shift from daylight to darkness will be only

One faltering step made feebly by a blind dancer.