Mad As the Mist

 Bold and bar the shutter,

For the foul winds blow;

Our minds are at their best this night,

And I seem to know

That everything outside us is

Mad as the mist and snow.

Horace there by Homer stands,

Plato stands below,

And here is Tully's open page.

How many years ago

Were you and I unlettered lads

Mad as the mist and snow?

You. ask what makes me sight, old friend,

What makes me shudder so?

I shudder and I sigh to think

That even Cicero

And many-minded Homer were

Mad as the mist and snow.

(Yeats)

The morning weighed down, a heavy sky pressing the distant horizon flat, only close up was the visage of  elevation to be gained, or lost. The tiniest of droplets in a day dawned soft and grey collecting on sparkling seed heads, not needing a sun to mimic the facets of a jewel. I wonder how many droplet must collect on the brim of a cap to form a full drop, then watch as another loosens its hold and falls away, its rust color a reflection of the buckwheat mirroring both sides of the trail. I glide down the hillside to where the willows and cottonwoods, their soft shades barely visible through the veil of maddening mist separating this spot from that.