Pearl Fog
Pearl Fog - context Summary
Published in 1916
Published in Carl Sandburg’s 1916 collection Chicago Poems, "Pearl Fog" is a short free-verse piece that addresses the city’s mist as a listener and cloak. The speaker urges a walk into the fog and frames it as a safe, indifferent confessor: the pearl fog hears sins yet remains unconcerned with laws or judgment. The poem compresses urban atmosphere and moral ambiguity into a spare, suggestive image.
Read Complete AnalysesOpen the door now. Go roll up the collar of your coat To walk in the changing scarf of mist. Tell your sins here to the pearl fog And know for once a deepening night Strange as the half-meanings Alurk in a wise woman's mousey eyes. Yes, tell your sins And know how careless a pearl fog is Of the laws you have broken.
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