A couple months ago I posted about a visit to a beautiful geographic feature in Nebraska that I camped next to and hoped to explore more the next morning, but the rain from a tropical depression coming up from California chased me away. I continued on to my next planned stop of Badlands National Park in South Dakota. The whole drive was through rain and fog, and when I first got to the park, there was little to see beyond a few hundred feet. Eventually, the fog lightened a little.
I’ve mentioned in a couple posts of a time I backpacked in North Carolina and awoke to a flooding Pigeon River that I camped beside. Another post about that hike I used a favorite poem from Anishinaabe poet Gordon Henry, Jr. Sleeping in the Rain. That night in the rain-soaked tent I was reading Sidhartha by Hermann Hesse. He was also a poet.
In the Fog, by Hermann Hesse
Strange, to wander in the fog.
Each bush and stone stands alone,
No tree sees the next one,
Each is alone.
My world was full of friends
When my life was filled with light,
Now as the fog descends
None is still to be seen.
Truly there is no wise man
Who does not know the dark
Which quietly and inescapably
Separates him from everything else.
Strange, to wander in the fog,
To live is to be alone.
No man knows the next man,
Each is alone.
