[Alex Pepple]

Night Fog


There is a man in the woods
searching in haze for signs
of me.

His kerosene lamp swinging,
he tramples twigs, seedpods,
remnants of wings.

My name slips his tongue.
He walks to the familiar
river, plunges his hand,
splashes his face,

then peers through mist for what flotsam
survived the night
he watched everything
of me drift away.

[Harry Nicolas]

Hey alex, here is my interpretation
Night fog - gives ominous/eerie image in my head
4stanzas

Stanza 1 - a man in the woods searching for the N. haze is metaphor for something
Stanza2 - lamp is light to guide is way. Remnants of wings is ambiguous so wings of what -a bird, butterfly, angel, something that flies. Also remnants implies the pssage of time so the wings are archaic and have been decaying for a long time.
Stanza3 - so the N does know the man in the woods.what type of relationship do they have?
Stanza4 - there is a figurative shipwreck. The man watches the n that is a metaphorical shipwreck drift away.

The passage of time seems to be a theme here. Shipwrecks and remnants of wings are things you come upon and I think of what was the ship carrying where was it going, what type of wings/where was the bird (if it is one) going
The haze/mist is a metaphor for something I’m not sure what, maybe something that was clouding/fogging the relationship between the N and the man in the woods.
For me- unless I’m missing something which I probably am, I think I would want to see more stanzas developing the narrative, but that’s just my personal opinion