I continue to be amused and amazed by the fog here in the Sunset District of San Francisco. It is so unlike anything I grew up with in New England forests and farms far from the ocean. It now summer and prime fog time. We watch tourists lulled by brief Thhours of sun suddenly shivering in the blowing mist. I take my vitamin D, put on another layer, and smile at the City.
Mist and Silver
Fog can be dense as wool or smoke muffling,
or a slow slide of diaphanous silk
settling in early morning valleys
to slowly slip away in growing light.
Some San Franciscans name our fog – Karl.
I only personify it when journeying wisps of mist
glide like spirits to dissipate
into warming air over Twin Peaks.
The dampness on my cheeks is refreshing
or bracing – always soft.
Moisture catches in spider webs,
creates damp circles where it drips
from bushes and branches
nourishing gray-green lichen and mottled algae.
Afternoons, fog currents
merge into a cold river rushing east
between gaps and over topography,
trees and houses – boulders in rapids.
At night, powered by wind it brushes
along the shingle siding of our third floor
with rhythmic sighs like the ocean waves
that break two miles west.
Fog horns – both humorous
and spectral –
sing a San Francisco song.
Heather Saunders Estes 