Winter Mist

This morning’s tide arrived slowly
Bits and pieces of the day gently
Lifted from their slumber
Until the world looks nearly real
The landscape caught by morning’s surprise
Has forgotten details of its own awakening
Under the soft and heavy drape of mist
That hangs still and silent in the air

The space around me is sealed
A glass lid on a glass casserole
And I am on the inside
Soft slaps and plunks of ocean
Here and there played on sandstone
Unravel a string of shoreline
Below my feet
In front of me and beside me

Everything is grey
Still ocean and sleeping sky
Blended into one
Joined across the horizon
Of their forgotten separation
The mist at a distance has become fog
It has eaten all the color
From trees across the bay
And stolen trees completely
From the more distant forest

Ferns and Salal
Hold their breath with me
And listen
To sounds normally lost
Under the ocean’s soft blanket
Of white noise
A stream splashes
And a dipper calls

Even the soft rusty hinge
Of a widgeons wings
Settles on me softly
From somewhere
Inside the damp mist above
Wing beats drifting in the wake
Of that bird’s blind flight
Even my thoughts
Want to chase after birds
This morning

The half splash of a loon
Frightened by its own eerie call
Magnified in the empty silence
Disappears into its own circle
Entering another world
Safe from its own call
But bound by need to be
A shadowed predator
Of others