Monday, December 10, 2007

Fogginess abounds

Here in small town northern Italy, we are officially in the Season of the Fog. Apparently la nebbia plagues local airports, causing flight cancellations and the like. Apparently, it gets worse as we move further into winter. I've lived with cold, rain, and snow, in heat and humidity, but fog? It calls to mind Baskerville hounds and Heathcliff out on the moor. With life imitating literature, the fog brings some mystery to the day. This is Seamus Heaney weather.

The Peninsula
by Seamus Heaney

When you have nothing more to say, just drive
For a day all round the peninsula;
The sky is high as over a runway,
The land without marks so you will not arrive

But pass through, though always skirting landfall.
At dusk, horizons drink down sea and hill,
The ploughed field swallows the whitewashed gable
And you're in the dark again. Now recall

The glazed foreshore and silhouetted log,
That rock were breakers shredded into rags,
The leggy birds stilted on their own legs,
Islands riding themselves out into the fog

And drive back home, still with nothing to say
Except that now you will uncode all landscapes
By this: things founded clean on their own shapes,
Water and ground in their extremity.


2 comments:

Gabs said...

"Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this high court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth..."

Fango said...

In the sight of heaven and earth, wither which way the winds may blow - I had to look this one up for sure. Where's Bartleby when I need him? Off lollygagging for sure...