It's just poetry, it won't bite

Beyond the Fog


09.28.19 Posted in today's words by

Tom Gnagey’s most recent poem to appear here was “I Am Looking for a Place” (August 2019).

Beyond the Fog
By Tom Gnagey

When I arose this morning the pane was as if frosted—what lay beyond unclear, clouded.
That which must be there was but faintly offered in hue and form,
as if replaced with a remarkable rendering of my reality by Degas, Monet, Van Gough.
The fresh, sparkling, beauty was unmatched by what I had ever known—its allusion, though, unclear.

The view of distant hills, which, from that spot, had been my early morning certainty for years, was blurred,
cast in gently rising ripples of white—randomly infused with pastel greens, reds, golds and blues.
The essence of my world came clear—pale, unnamed shades mingling with no fidelity to forms or borders,
blurred, vague shapes awash as if it were the unmolested raw material of life.

As the World brightened, bit by bit, my focus flowed beyond the glass to somewhere in between.
A fading soft blanket that swelled and waned, had distorted the here to there—dense, amorphous, undefined.
Somewhere beyond, the grass and trees and hills and sky sought form—if fuzzy and indistinct—suggesting, though, the backdrop of my expectation.
While still unclear, I understood in part—my certainties had not abandoned me; they had in some way softened and merged into something beyond themselves.

There lays an instructive, valuable vagueness outside the commonplace—the commonplace that often delimits, grips and clouds man’s view.
It is separate from that which can be reached and touched and moved and altered—
beyond the frost, or dappled ice, or gathering, dripping dew. To embrace it requires patience,
a mind freed from the certainties of ‘what is’, because to fathom what lays beyond, it must run unshackled by the constraints of lessons and experience, of hopes and fears.

As this Being that we are, we have the remarkable capacity, when honed, to penetrate the fog and see beyond what’s near—
beyond the palpable, the walls, the boxes, the clouded views and coated glass.
With preparation and persistence, and allowing the bright warmth of day, fogs will rise and fade away
leaving visions, clear, for those who thoughtfully pursue the promises and possibilities of the ‘not yet’, the ‘why not’, and the ‘surely there’s a way’.

I have grown to treasure the fogs of my life—promising, wonder-filled inkblots that but await my imagination and considered reconfiguration.
Setting fear aside, they tease and allow the melding of what is known, my fleeting unconsidered present, and the promising mysteries of the future.
I have grown to treasure those necessary, inescapable unknowns, and feel safe and secure
in the knowledge that, with confidence, I will meet and greet tomorrow’s tests and quests with a lifetime of well-practiced prowess, curiosity, and open arms.

May we thoughtfully prepare ourselves and our children to effectively look beyond the fog.



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