FOG

October 17 at University Lake

Tentacles of moisture stroked my cheeks and dampened my just dried hair. I stood still and silent, cocooned in the mists of early fall morning fog. Staring ahead, I willed my eyes to focus, or at least to remember the lakeside scene I had photographed just days before. 

The trees that still clung to water’s edge were now but shadowy images against the backdrop of uncertain gray. Gone were the wind-whipped ripples that sparkled in the sunlight of brighter days. Gone were the gentle clouds that teased the imagination with suggestions of characters—like actors dressed for the part on a stage of brilliant blue. Gone was the line of trees that stood as stalwart witness to the certainty of a shoreline on the other side. It was a panorama of promised nothingness.

My grief is like a foggy morning—a season when a bright kaleidoscope of ever after dreams, has repainted itself in shades of speculative gray. This miasma is neither as dark nor as fearsome as some might think. Wrapped in a shroud of pain, I remember two things. First, although the mist obscures the distant shore, I have no doubt solid ground I cannot see still exists. Although I may not see far front of me, I can continue my way forward with cautious steps.

Secondly, sorrow is but a vapor that, given time, relinquishes its grip in the heat of unrelenting light. Lines penned by Carl Sandburg, one of my favorite poets, surface as I stand peering into the gray,

The fog comes on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on. 

And then moves on….

In time the fog will lift; it will move on. Until it does, you will find me walking resolutely through a metaphorical fog, confident that,

Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 
(Psalm 30:5b, 2 Corinthians 4:17)