IN THE FOG

Evening already, the lagoon is still and cold,
we are swaddled together in the smooth tightness,
we share it with the pulsing puffs of our breaths.
The pressing closeness of the world lingering unseen
binds us together on the deck.
The radar rotates, hovering and alert,
a soldier’s gaze ready to face an ambush.
But there’s not much anxiety, not much fear,
it’s as if we were born here, getting accustomed
to chatter with the dull vast shadows,
the other bank being not very far
with its long belt of stones like marbles,
its humming bustle and children’s shouts.
When there always seems to be one more stretch to go,
in thick emptiness, on the dark oily water-skin,
we sense we can almost touch the voices on the bank,
they are ours as our own breath and heart,
what happens is just that we are blind
to what most lasts and weaves us onward,
while we wait for our meaning.


The Fog-horns are moaning in this very moment...how much fog I have lived in, in more than one sense, in my life! Today the fog has penetrated into my heater's pipes stopping the system and setting off its alarm...so I had to call for help, the usual man came...screwdrivers and all.
And once more I felt "piped-in" and pipe-dependent...a ball inside a box in the heater had got stuck for the dirt and dampness and had paralyzed all the engine.
Very un-poetical, even if I am sure Seamus Heaney could all the same write a great poem on a matter like this!