Fantastic Foggy Fracas

O suns and skies and flowers of June,

Count all your boasts together,

Love loveth best of all the year

October’s bright blue weather.

               –Helen Hunt Jackson

Right on time, October steps onto the world scene, bringing with her blue skies, colorful leaves, and crisp autumn mornings. Oh, and fog too. October is one of those months when the warm air of summer meets the chilliness of autumn. Throw in some rain to dampen the air and we have fog. Misty strands that swirl and float and change the landscape into an alien place.

My neighbor’s solar lights are small pools of brightness in this dark, pre-dawn morning. My solar lights, too, push back the night and mark the sidewalk  from driveway to house. Those solar lights remind me of hope.  Lights in the dark, lights in the fog, marking the right way, the safe way.

Getting back to October and fall and fog, I am reminded of an entirely fantastic poem I wrote many years ago. I must have been looking out at a foggy fall day and imagining spooky shapes in the mist or perhaps I was in a mood to let my imagination take flight. Anyway, with apologies for the lack of finesse, here is a long ago poem:

Foggy Fracas

The door swung softly open,

And, swirling soundlessly,

Many misty visitors

Soon encircled me.

My silent guests seemed sullen,

Swathed in dripping gowns;

They fixed their watery eyes on me

And frowned their dripping frowns.

I felt a sudden tremor

And saw, as in a trance,

The faded, foggy phantoms

Begin a ghostly dance.

Then, slowly they all beckoned

With faint and hazy hands,

Inviting me to follow them

To shrouded, clouded lands.

I would not join their number

So they drifted out the door.

The only signs they left behind

Were puddles on the floors.

          –Blanche Day Manos