Daybreak, Benedict Canyon.(New poems)(Poem)

 
Daybreak, Benedict Canyon 
 
   Thick fog has filled the canyon overnight 
   And turned it to a sea of milky gray. 
   The steep-sloped chaparral and streets below 
   Are drowned from view; hilltops across the way 
   Form a low-lying archipelago 
   Upon the fog's smothering gulfs and shoals. 
   The scene, in the uncertain pre-dawn light, 
   Recalls those Chinese landscapes on silk scrolls 
 
   In which mists haunt ravines, and clouds surround 
   Remote peaks fading to remoter skies. 
   The scene suggests, too, the apocalypse 
   The earth may suffer if sea levels rise. 
   This very deck might be a ghostly ship's 
   And I a lone survivor, cast by fate 
   Out on a flood as lifeless and profound 
   As the one Noah had to navigate. ...