I stand inside clouds on a San Francisco hill

tonight, and marvel at sights unseen:

blurry halos of street lamps, hints

of intersections, furry skyscraper shapes

lining the Bay.   Fog rolls in like the crest

of a wave before it dissolves against the shore,

engulfing me in a grayed greeting

from the ocean nearby.   I walk, and wonder

at fog as metaphor, its meaning

to humans over time.

What is inside these grounded clouds? 

What is hidden to us?  

 Neither future nor past is seen, every

possibility just out of reach,

all history shrouded.

There is only now, only this moment

in this place. Without a visible world,

 does imagination grow wider…deeper?  

  The night air is still,  dense with mystery,

as if the answers to all our questions

are here— sotto voce and sub rosa—–

vague whispers in mist I cannot understand.

Inside this fog I feel a multitude of stories,

told and untold, can almost hear wispy

voices from yesterday and tomorrow,

trying to share wisdom and cautionary

tales, folding softly in and out of time.

 

Cynthia J. Lee

Stories the Fog Holds (24 x 24 (Oil, cold wax, pastels on wood panel)