Growing Up in a Fog - Original Poetry

Growing Up in a Fog

There is a strangeness in fog
that is palpable
and perhaps it is the strangeness in me
which responds

It is no accident I know
that I was raised
where fog is legend
and so remains a cloying fact of life
for Sunny California
is coldly blanketed each morning
six months of every year
in chilly dampness

What once was familiar
now changed
hidden within soft billows
of clouds brought to earth
the monotonous drip
from the leaves of the trees
the rocks on the hillsides
stars and planets obscured
only the mysterious moon
peeks through the diaphanous veil
lighting her shroud from above

now moving
now shifting
a glimpse of . . . something
caught
only to disappear once more
within the flowing haze

Yet where others find in fog
a thing to fear
I find in it a pleasure
seldom found elsewhere
for me familiar comfort
in the heavy grey mist
enveloping me
as a blanket of spirit
or ancestors

And perhaps it is this
the others fear
for the spirits of fog
can be cunning and cruel
hiding dangers
from those unwary
or disrespectful

But I miss the fog
laying low upon the cliffs
turning ordinary landscape
into otherworldly and strange

I long for the lonely cries
of the foghorn at sea
and should the sea monster come
I pray it finds
the love it seeks

19Jan2007

For my mother, who introduced me to the Ray Bradbury short story, "The Foghorn," her favorite among his works, and mine. The final stanza of the poem is in reference to the short story.

I read the poem to my mother shortly after I wrote it, and she loved it, which I appreciated, as it is among my favorite poems that I have written. This remains the only poem I've read in public, in which I began with the audience being somewhat noisy, only to have them quieten to absolute silence before the end of the poem. It was magical.

The story was originally published under the name "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" in the Saturday Evening Post, in 1951, inspiring a 1953 Hollywood film of the same name, loosely based on the short story.

Bradbury reportedly disliked the resulting film so much that he had his name removed from the credits, but the film went on to be highly influential, ushering in the era of monster horror films, and inspiring the original Japanese film "Gojira" (Godzilla), which was released the following year, and has spawned dozens of remakes in subsequent decades.

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art and flair courtesy of @PegasusPhysics

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