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This Fog Well, now I'm lost in fog. Not metaphorically. Not in the middle of life's journey. But mid-way Between green can "8" and Hadley Harbor, Which should be beyond that atheistic whiteness That might as well be the edge of the earth. I cling To the one gray-black rocky finger of land Included in the mortal circle I can see. Depth should be four feet or better to the west of that So I'll drop anchor as soon as I get there, Wait for death in one spot, not sailing and motoring Against a current fast enough to make green can "8" Look like the smokestack of a drowned steamer Going full speed ahead even as it's sinking. Oh God, I think, though I do not think I believe In petitionary prayer. The sea is bigger than I am, And I always do something to reawaken a sense of contingency. Who else to talk to? My voice to the living Would sound pathetic and posthumous as the cockpit voice recorder Recovered from crashes, or the too-human postures Of the charcoal-colored Mt. Vesuvius victims Reaching for help, still, after two thousand years. So, by the compass, I'm going to have to save myself, Believe in my belief that's Timmy Point, No parent, or instructor, to nod a calm confirmation. Lower an anchor, and hope the one rock I can see, Shaped like an anvil, isn't taken from me too By this fog. This fog which, if I live, will soon be metaphor. Alan Feldman The Virginia Quarterly Review Volume 75, Number 2 Spring 1999 Copyright 1999 by The Virginia Quarterly Review. The University of Virginia. All rights reserved. Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission. Copyright 1999 The Daily Poetry Association http://www.poems.com/today.htm ------------------------------------------------------------ janet paterson 52 now 41 dx 37 onset [log in to unmask] 613-256-8340 PO Box 171 Almonte Ontario K0A 1A0 Canada a new voice <http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Village/6263/> ------------------------------------------------------------