"Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on ground:"

(Craig Raine, A Martian Sends a Postcard Home)


This has always been my favourite line by Raine - something to do with the sly name-checking of the band of the Sixties. Yet now I see that what had appeared mere poetic whimsy is - in fact - perfectly true. Good old stratus, as Gavin P-P explains. The clouds coming - literally - down to earth.

As was the case driving along the Ring this morning (7:55 am, a little later than usual on account of the holiday and a sneaky swim before breakfast). The road dips and there shrouding the trees and tarmac a band of obscurity.

Such mists! Such fruitfulness!