In 1878, Carl Sandburg wrote:

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Nearly 140 years later on April 3, 2015, Sandburg’s descriptive poem transcended the paper on which it was written. The words leapt off the pages and a thick blanket of fog rolled across the Long Island Sound on “little cat feet.”



For a time, it sat over the water, shrouding Long Island and also the landscape across Larchmont Harbor in white .



Stealthily, it approached the shore on a light northeast breeze. The last buoy before the rocks of Manor Park soon disappeared as the white cloud hugged the water and slipped ever closer to shore. Soon Umbrella Point with its distinctive mini gazebo and the Park’s two large gazebos, still barren trees, and large glacial erratic would vanish from sight.



And so an early spring day would end on an eerie note.

But then, just as the future is never fully certain, the wind suddenly shifted as the fog had begun to roll up the metamorphic rocks that lined the shore. For a moment, the fog seemed to sit on “silent haunches.” And then, as the gentle northwesterly breeze filtered across the Park, the fog ‘moved on.’

The silently drifting fog of that April day reminds one that there is still much beauty in life that often is hidden from plain view. More often than not, that beauty is shrouded by the countless mundane elements that comprise daily living: tiresome commuting, long work days, seemingly endless chores. Persistence is required if one is to pierce the fog of the mundane aspects of living.

Persistence serves the photographer especially well. A good deal of persistence is often required to capture the magical lighting of a magnificent sunrise or sunset. Persistence is often required to photograph the sweetness of the hummingbirds that add vibrancy to summer’s flowers. Persistence is often necessary to snap a Monarch that splashes the summer landscape with an extra dose of color and the grace of a ballerina.

When such moments are captured, they can live on long beyond the time the photograph is printed or uploaded. It is in those moments that the proverbial fog lifts to reveal some of the remarkable beauty that is all around us. Such beauty is available to all, not just the photographers or artists. With summer now winding down, it is still not too late to seek out and find that beauty.