Promptly 4, 5 and 6

Fog

Fog

Fine for Eliot with his yellow fog,
infused with smoke and spattered with soot,
that falls asleep embracing the house.

Not so easy for me who never knew fog
until, returning to England and snow,
I met the soft grey mantle of atmosphere
gone thick with dew and cold,
as silent as a cat’s paws padding
down the passage in the dark.

Oh I’ve grown to love this swaddling
in a dim world with restricted view
and sounds muffled to extinction.
Never thick enough for me,
avid of privacy as I am and singular,
the fog feels like home, a place
where secrets hide and thoughts run free.

Yes, I’ll take this friend of new acquaintance,
though I never knew it yellow as Eliot’s
in those chimney days before Clean Air
and, if I cannot sing as eloquent as he,
I offer at least this pumpkin of a poem.


Line count: 21
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry Challenge 6, Week 11
Prompt: Use these words in your poem - pumpkin, cat, fog.