The fog moved in
like a web on grass,
a curtain
above the black mystery of the earth.
It is not common in June.
Not in Columbus.
But this has not been
a June of Junes.
Perhaps the English
know this better than we.
Or countries where the jungle
invades the houses,
or the monsoons flow
and leave their mists.
Or living on the slope of a mountain,
where the morning
comes almost at noon.
But the fog is here
and there are people in it.
Forms that approach
and leave without sound,
without greeting.
And I realize
it is only the fog,
moving around a corner,
or spilling from a bush,
in ponderous shapes and shadows.
I don’t know if people are there,
or shades of the past.
People that had sunny faces
and bright laughs.
Who talked and shouted,
but now,
move in the grayness,
as if they must keep a secret,
or are not quite awake,
or have turned into air
and sadness.
The fog can do strange things
to your eyes.
As if sight
were an extension
of all that passed on and returns,
to listen,
to touch in indefinable ways.