Golden Gate Morning by Marianne Brems

Golden Gate Morning
by Marianne Brems

Fog spills over the ridge like a cauldron.
Thick and soft as goose feathers,
swaddling a bridge
not ready to rise from sleep
beneath its hidden towers.
The majestic turned docile
inside a shroud of gray.

But within seconds,
like an apology for obstruction,
the north tower leaps through this curtain
in a sudden blaze of crimson
piercing the lucid azure sky.
Persistent wisps of fog
timidly seep over the ridge
but can no longer contain
a paramount cool sunlight.

First published in Sliver of Change (released November 26, 2020 by Finishing Line Press).

PHOTO: The Golden Gate Bridge in morning fog, San Francisco, California. Photo by Sydney Herron on Unsplash.

NOTE: The Golden Gate Bridge spans the Golden Gate, the one-mile-wide strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The structure links San Francisco—the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula—to Marin County, carrying both U.S. Route 101 and  California State Route 1 across the strait. Designed in 1917 by engineer Joseph Strauss, and completed by other architects and engineers, it has been declared one of the Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The Frommer’s travel guide describes the Golden Gate Bridge as “possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed, bridge in the world.” At the time of its opening in 1937, it was both the longest and the tallest suspension bridge in the world, with a main span of 4,200 feet and a total height of 746 feet.

PHOTO: The Golden Gate Bridge at sunset (San Francisco, California). Photo by Umer Sayyam on Unsplash

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge in May 2016.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marianne Brems’ first poetry chapbook is Sliver of Change (Finishing Line Press, 2020). Her second chapbook Unsung Offerings is forthcoming in 2021. Her poems have appeared in literary journals, including The Pangolin Review, Nightingale & Sparrow, The Sunlight Press, and The Tiny Seed Literary Journal. She lives in Northern California. Visit her at mariannebrems.com.