The most poetic of weathers has visited us this morning, the kiss of cloud on earth, that which comes in on little cat feet (as in the short, oft-anthologized poem by Carl Sandburg) — I’m talking fog, of course.

No fun to drive in but so nice to wake up to, fog makes the real world go away. It softens the edges of landscapes, blurs them, smudges them deftly into each other. It’s funny how I can remember foggy weather that happened decades ago: an entire week of mild misty early winter days in Chicago. A hike in the Rockies when I thought we’d lost our way. The glorious summer on a mountaintop in Arkansas, when we were often unable to “come down the mountain” because we were totally socked in by the stuff.

A light fog is fine walking weather. Not so thick as to obscure the path ahead, but soft enough to embrace it.