This one is definitely not just about walking in the fog. I think this poet was fascinated with several different ideas and states of life and mind. In the first line where 'everything looms,' I am automatically on guard for the grand daddy of all things that loom: death. So, aside from the possible sometimes lethal aspects of hound's tongue, I viewed the description of the live oak with its 'black arms' suggesting an embrace as the grim reaper perhaps coming up 'the mist-streaked hillside' to carry out its grim deed. As the owl too signifies a representation that some living things have more immediate threats of death, as the wren singing happy unawares 'flashes back in' to safety sensing the owl.

And I even get that the interplay on the fog might represent how in the long passing sense of a lifetime that what has gone by can be lost in a blur, a stretching stain of memory or can be encompassed like how the leaves of a tree, that at a distance, just form an outline of events and specific remembrances. Where the details are 'hidden' in the fog of the background. That should we stop to examine any of these details closely, the fog of passing time, which brings our death, falls away and we live without anxiety in real time, temporarily unaware of that which looms. (Not that we don't have natural predators other than time, historically, there is always someone trying to kill Americans or so it seems.)

Anyway, in the third stanza we learn we have company on our little trudge through the murk. And there it is! Death walks with us. I assumed the walker was alone till this point. I hope he went for that impression. Because it explains why he has laid out such a grim picture of his surroundings. And it brings home the point that his friend, whose wait has ended, can frolic in and out of her appointment with death much less concerned with the details.

Finally, I think the poem is a lament in the final analyses. A kind of sadness bulging with irony that it takes an awareness that death has in fact arrived and is imminent to allow one to enjoy living life for what it is. The stop and smell the roses cliché! More or less. But that is much more than just a walk in the fog.

Hi NP1,

I liked several parts of your essay, beginning with the subject heading. I also liked

In the first line where 'everything looms,' I am automatically on guard for the grand daddy of all things that loom: death.

........................

And I even get that the interplay on the fog might represent how in the long passing sense of a lifetime that what has gone by can be lost in a blur, a stretching stain of memory or can be encompassed like how the leaves of a tree, that at a distance, just form an outline of events and specific remembrances. Where the details are 'hidden' in the fog of the background. That should we stop to examine any of these details closely, the fog of passing time, which brings our death, falls away and we live without anxiety in real time, temporarily unaware of that which looms.

The only part I wasn't crazy about is this --

Finally, I think the poem is a lament in the final analyses. A kind of sadness bulging with irony that it takes an awareness that death has in fact arrived and is imminent to allow one to enjoy living life for what it is.

I just don't see that didacticism in the poem. For me, the poem ends with what you said above -- his friend can "live without anxiety in real time, temporarily unaware of that which looms." I don't think every poem needs to have a moral or message. For me, it's enough that the poet/narrator described the actions of his dying friend.

Congrats on a great essay, NP1.

MA

Hi, NuPlanetOne - What a nice analysis! I agree with much of it, but I'm having trouble accepting the poem as a lament. The fact that someone facing death can be out enjoying nature, caroming in and out of the fog, seems rather uplifting, perhaps even joyous.

Thanks MA. But where it was enough for you, the fact that the narrator introduced us to his friend only near the end of the poem, built an impression that by comparison with the new information, I felt he was lamenting for himself and his place amongst the living. Everything loomed at him. An 'oh woe is me' type of comment on his seeing his friend's ability to flash in and out like the wren. And I think that was a deliberate metaphor. His friend has a palpable predator now. One she must be wary of. But if she does not sense it, she too, like the wren, sings happily unawares, that is, lest she spy the owl.

You are right, of course, as well as islandtime, that it is not a lament in the classic sense. But all around the edges of the poet's bemusement with his friend's ability to flash in and out like the wren or lose herself and come back I sense a self pity, a sorrow that for himself death looms in every crevice should he cut through the fog and examine things too closely. And perhaps, whether it is just an ulterior message, subliminal even, he is sad he must go on.

But all around the edges of the poet's bemusement with his friend's ability to flash in and out like the wren or lose herself and come back I sense a self pity, a sorrow that for himself death looms in every crevice should he cut through the fog and examine things too closely.

After I posted to you, I became enlightened by islandtime's take on the poem. And so I currently think the narrator is writing after his friend has died and he is remembering her. So his lament (for me) is not self-pity but an elegy to her.