Santosh Bakaya writes

THE FOG

PART TWO

Section 17 

The fireflies stopped flitting, the birds their trilling.

The tension was killing, the screams blood chilling.

Cold radiated from the earth, gone was the mirth.

The air smelt of malevolence and of painful dearth.

The trees went mute, the forest went back to sleep.

Then rippling laughter resounded in the forest deep.

As two figures emerged from behind the trees 

And broke into dance, playfully sang the breeze.

Hand in hand by the river bank they danced.

From behind the pine tree, I watched entranced.

The moon was like a seraph, sublime and serene.

Stars twinkled and winked like voyeurs keen.

A sudden gale hit them with malevolent ingenuity,

Spitting airy expletives and curses with impunity.

Soon the trees were in its tempestuous embrace,

The gale like a man armed with a sinister mace.

When the sun peeped from behind a cloudy veil

I thought I again heard a blood curdling wail.

Or was it my fertile imagination playing tricks?

 I tried to shake off this scene of a weird mix.

Tendrils of mist here and there surreptitiously looked.

They were like lost ghosts and had me hooked.

I sprang up from the ground, eyes still groggy.

The sun played peekaboo from a sky still foggy.

In the Fog -- Tran Tuan