impenetrable beauty

There is nothing more mesmerising as billowing fog, creeping across deserted streets, slipping over garden fences clinging to the cold branches of trees. The afternoon sun struggles to be seen behind the untimely mist. Lush horizons reduced to silhouettes and the sky impending on the earth, the world compressed upon itself. The world beyond nothing more than a blur of grey and green; figures dissolve into nothing. Trees stand, proud in their nakedness, their leafy garments await warmth before returning, are now adorned in a delicate casing of silver, spun around their knobbly limbs, glistening in the dappled light.

The stinging cold bites at exposed skin, foot prints crumble the near frozen grass, leaving a trail of green in the frost covered ground. Had one looked back they might have seen the path, had it not been quickly swallowed by the fog. The landscape in front slowly gained detail, emerging from the blur, as the world behind fell into it.

Through an archway of skeletal trees and down the familiar track to the ocean edge; here it is darker, although the sun hovers high in the sky, attempting to penetrate the mist. All the footprints upon the damp sand have been washed away; a trail of sea weed craves the shore in half, spindly tufts of grass, shiver in protest and the tide laps quietly, as though it too fears sudden movement in the blurry unknown.

Flimsy shoes are no match for icy sand and backs turn quickly from such weather. Chills that quickly seep through cotton and denim; breath that forms before you, before clinging to nose and lungs. Warmth is sought and as we walk away; these moments of unimaginable beauty are deserted. Avoided and then forgotten.