The Fog Comes on Little Cat Feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
                   ----Carl Sandburg

Yes, it’s a foggy, snow strewn day today.  Cold, but warming.  An altogether pleasant looking day, from inside, that is.  Puts in mind something like this:

Ah, how I love Calvin & Hobbes.  Especially the snowmen strips.  Those are some of the best.  I have all the collections, and on wintry days, I like to peruse through the strips and laugh all over again.

I’ve a busy, busy weekend lined up.  My city no longer offers passport applications, and the nearest place we could find was 40 miles North.  So, we’re going to turn in our applications tomorrow morning at 9:00, and hopefully be outta there soon after.  Then we’ve got an appointment to do our taxes, which I do in a town 30 miles south of my house.  Lots of driving for those two things.

After that, though, we’re free to celebrate Valentine’s Day.  Not sure exactly what we’re going to do other than eat and go watch Percy Jackson, but we’ll think of something.  For the rest of you, have a happy weekend, whether it’s with your valentine or not. 

I’m not sure how many of you like poetry, but this is one of my favorite poems.  It’s by Craig Raine, called “A Martian Sends A Postcard Home.”  It’s beautiful.  It’s mysterious.  The first time I read it, when I finished, I immediately re-read it, trying to figure out what was meant.  I think I figured it all out.

 

“A Martian Sends A Postcard Home”

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
and some are treasured for their markings --

they cause the eyes to melt
or the body to shriek without pain.

I have never seen one fly, but
sometimes they perch on the hand.

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on ground:

then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.

Rain is when the earth is television.
It has the property of making colours darker.

Model T is a room with the lock inside --
a key is turned to free the world

for movement, so quick there is a film
to watch for anything missed.

But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.

In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room

with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises

alone. No one is exempt
and everyone's pain has a different smell.

At night when all the colours die,
they hide in pairs

and read about themselves --
in colour, with their eyelids shut.

Yes, it’s one of those days with poetry in them.  One of those where you see the beauty and bright lights of life in everything.  One of those days where nothing can go wrong.  One of those snot-draining, mucus tasting, stomach-churning days.

Did you read the poem?  Did you “solve” it?