Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg famously noted that "Fog creeps in on little cat feet". Not so. This morning, fog lay softly like a fleece blanket, muting the sights of our neighborhood. The streetlamps had a Dickensian iridescence and you tried to squint to sharpen the view. Sounds of birds were amplified by the density of the air. Tall pines were decapitated as they faded into the mist. Gentle striations of droplets painted the scene with brush strokes and held the wafting incense of honeysuckle right at nose level.

This was in stark contrast to a scene from Tuesday night on my flight back into Charlotte. Puffed clouds of cotton batting illuminated eerily by the soft cast of the moon. Brownish red lightning dancing and darting within the thunderheads. The gentle buffeting of the plane in the masses of moving air and water. The light and dark contrasts of moonlight slicing through the stratified layers of clouds. The rhythmic pulse of the wing lights that grew blindingly bright as we passed through clouds.

Nature has a strange and peaceful beauty that gives us pause in our busy world.