Fog

Fog
For George Szirtes.

On the coast of Northumberland the fingers
Of a promontory test the sea fog that descends
Upon the North Sea, doubting the unreality
Then they too disappear as the shroud lingers
The fishing boats and cobles are universally
Covered , the voices carried by the mystery
At times, for the religious it is of the Eucharist
Though for the kid with fishing rod this screen
Natural and beautiful covered also the liturgy
The fish can be heard to move in the stillness
Of the millpond sea, the greyness at times
Impacted by the hovering light of a helicopter
This fog a pretext for Nature to assert itself
In a manifestation that the unbeliever claims
To be Dickensian in its extent of uncanniness
To be abroad when the colours are monochrome
Like when the television electron guns go awry
To have one’s faith tested like one’s vision
Here is the fog, a fiction covered in facts.