The mist has thickened into impenetrable fog
But the sea swirls, sucks and swells just the same.
Fog draped rocks are become invisible or disguised.
Light gleams are suffused with water
Cannot pierce the shadowy shrouds.
All sound is muffled
Until a familiar haunted call from atop it’s rock pinnacle.
The foghorn’s cry carries like dust on a desert wind
Puncturing each water droplet,
Startling roosting birds, sending mice scurrying,
Arousing me from fitful sleep and fearful dreams of floundering ships.
Its muted echo tumbles around me
And I breathe more easily in its embrace,
Island born, island bound to the sea
And the rocks and the cliffs
And the foghorn, that static saviour reticent in sunshine.
Trudie Shannon
