Thursday, February 21, 2013

THE CHANGING LIGHT


by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The changing light
                    at San Francisco
          is none of your East Coast light
                    none of your
                              pearly light of Paris
The light of San Francisco
                         is a sea light
                                        an island light
And the light of fog
                    blanketing the hills
          drifting in at night
                         through the Golden Gate
                                        to lie on the city at dawn
And then the halcyon late mornings
          after the fog burns off
               and the sun paints white houses
                                        with the sea light of Greece
               with sharp clean shadows
                    making the town look like
                         it had just been painted
But the wind comes up at four o'clock
                                        sweeping the hills
And then the veil of light of early evening
And then another scrim
                    when the new night fog
                                        floats in
And in that vale of light
                    the city drifts
                              anchorless upon the ocean
From How to Paint Sunlight, Copyright 2000 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. All Rights Reserved.
BIO: Lawrence Ferlinghetti was a leading member of the "Beat" movement of the 1950s and continues to be an important political activist to this day. A beloved San Francisco icon, he was named San Francisco's Poet Laureate in August 1998. His City Lights Booksellers & Publishers has published works by Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac. A Coney Island of the Mind, published in 1958, remains his best-known collection of poems.