It Did Not Arrive
There is a ridge to the west of here, and in the evening the sea's fog comes over it.
I went up to the top of the road that goes over the mountain, where there is a place to stop and nobody stops. I stood at the rail for seventy minutes.
It comes up the far side, where you cannot see it, and then it is at the top, and then it goes over. It goes over slowly, the way a heavy thing does once it has decided. It goes down the near side between the trees, and about a third of the way down it is not there any more. Nothing takes it. It does not arrive. The valley below stayed clear the whole time, with the lights coming on in it.
I watched one of them all the way. It went over, it went down, it went.
At home we have this. I had not seen it done anywhere else, and I did not know it could be done this small.
A woman stopped her car at the turnout and stood at the other end of the rail. She watched for as long as I did. When she left she said it does this every night in the summer, and this was early. I said I knew. I did not know. I wanted her to think it was ordinary for both of us. It is ordinary for both of us.
I am going back on Thursday.