Army of the Fog Memorial
So, when I heard the fog horns last night I was thinking how much I missed Karl and how little he's been around lately. Sometimes it feels to me like it's not the same city anymore now that it's seldom blanketed by fog.
So, a little free verse about that. It's not real poetry, but I figured folks here would sympathize with it.
Army of the Fog Memorial
Once, the Army of the Fog would pour over the hills
like the ghostly hordes of Saladin.
Silent thousands, mounted on their vapor horses,
crested the hill each day in a cotton-gray wall,
fog horns blowing their victorious charge,
and streaming down among the trees and houses
seized the city of San Francisco.
The gray regime's curfew,
covering the city in silence and damp,
concealed and insulated,
making each neighborhood and enclave
its own tiny village.
All evening, night, and morning
our city was a thousand cities
each with its own strange culture
of dress, art, music, friendship, and sex.
The death-rays of the Sun's air force
could only penetrate the ranks of the Fog
for a few brief hours each day,
transforming the city
into a bright, small jewel of the coast
but then once again being overwhelmed
by the gray horde as sunset approached.
It was the Fog's City.
It has been a generation since
the Army of the Fog was victorious.
Now a tiny straggle of old veterans,
called back from retirement,
scatter over the hill and through the valleys
on foot, wandering and lost.
The Sun, having lost many battles
but won the war
with sheer persistence and human help,
sweeps them up and puts them back
in the Fog Veterans' Home.
No longer the Fog's City,
its foibles exposed
by the Sun's bleaching rays,
San Francisco is bright, and white, and plain.
Fog over San Francisco photo by "Brocken Inaglory" 2010, from Wikimedia Commons. Used under the Gnu Open Documentation License.
