FOG
The fog waits off the coast
Because it holds the souls
Of those who can’t bear to leave,
Those whose lives abruptly ended,
Those with a mission unfulfilled:
The natives who toiled in worship
To their new, confusing Christian god,
The miners who got lock jaw from a rusty nail,
Before holding pure salvation in their hands,
The soldiers, hundreds of years of soldiers,
Who guarded the Bay or died on foreign soil,
Who left their homes without bidding last goodbyes.
The decades of idealists,
Who sought to make a better world
Through smoke and music,
Through flowers and sensuous hair,
Who took a little too much
Of what they thought might be a good thing
And left the earth in a swirl of
Psychedelic light,
Those who jumped the bridge rails
To plummet into turbulent waters,
To die of shock but half way down
Begged to surf the waves below.
They wait
Off shore,
Each in a drop of mist,
For roughly 4 PM
When a fortunate wind will blow them
Back to land,
Back to redemption.
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