Laurie W. Stoelting

View from the Coast

Life used to be more predictable. Every few days in summer the fog moved in. Every few days someone would write a poem about the fog. Not Sandburg’s fog that comes on little cat feet. A fog that pours. It free falls over the coastal hills. No twilight. Night without stars. Days spent with incandescent light.

view to the sea—
it’s no longer clear
what’s out there

My first year in San Francisco, I read a book about the fog. About our summer coast, and how its upwelling ocean water chills the warmed Pacific air. How water vapor in cooled air condenses. This forms our fog, which is continually pulled eastward by the rising current of hot inland air. As fog slips beneath this hot air, we get an Inversion—the usual atmospheric condition is reversed. What is usual, is for air to cool as it gains altitude. But when there is an inversion, if we hike or drive up our local mountain, we'll hit warm air somewhere between 200-2,000 ft. After several fogged-in days, I find myself yearning for the heat which remains above the fog ceiling.

night fog
climbing
out of it

covered with stars
much of what we bring
unneeded

Hunter’s moon
sharing our world view
with crickets

This season our weather is not predictable. Fog comes in but it stays too long, or we don’t have fog for days. Sometimes a day can’t decide and we hover between fog and heat. You could blame global warming. A lot of things are in disarray. Looking for fog, I strain to see past the western horizon. I don’t want the fog, but it’s what I’m expecting. It’s like anxiety. September 11th: We didn’t want the good times to go away.

sudden heat
we enter
head first