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.