“I must go in, for the fog is rising,”
breathed out that pen we love so well,
as she upon her bed lay dying—
enigma last to seal the spell
her verses spread around the globe,
before release sent spirit flying
to join that dance her poems tell
and drop her shroud to don a robe.
“I must go in, for the fog is rising,”
she uttered one last mystery,
not with reluctance or despising
the specter vigil failed to see—
that muse familiar, comrade Death,
whose presence surely spurred such sighing
to sum her verbal history
with hinted clue in final breath.
“I must go in, for the fog is rising,”
she spoke so typically and true,
as in his coach she stepped for riding
away from spheres seclusion knew,
beyond what borrowed books could show her,
past misty moors within her writing—
determined, unperturbed, she flew
from reach of reader’s claim to know her.
© 2020 David L. Hatton