Slowly the fog did what fog does, eventually: it lifted, the wayveils tend to at some point in epic          verse so that the hero cansee the divinity at work constantly behindall things mortal, or that’s          the idea, anyway, I’m not saying I do or don’tbelieve that, I’m not even sure that belief can changeany of it, at least in terms of the facts of how,          moment by moment, any life unfurls, we cancall it fate or call it just what happened, whathappens, while we’re busy trying to describe          or explain what happens,how a mimosa tree caught growing close beside a housegets described as “hugging the house,”          for example, as if an impulse to find affection everywheremade us have to put it there,a spell against indifference,          as if that were the worst thing—is it?Isn’t it?          The fog lifted.It was early spring, still.The dogwood brandished those pollen-laden buds          that precede a flowering. History. What survives, or doesn’t.How the healthiest huddled, as much at leastas was possible, more closely together,          to give the sick more room. How they mostly all died, all the same.I was nowhere I’d ever been before.Nothing mattered.          I practiced standing as still as I could, for as long as I could.