The Lady Ferlinghetti Met At A Bistro Table In San Francisco

 



One grand boulevard with trees

one grand  café  in sun....

                                    Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Larry may have called her

Monet's lily floating in  time

                 because she wore an eyelet blouse

 

with  hair crimped and hanging

over its collar

like willow shade back-lit by the sun.

 

Nothing Wi-Fi about her. The cloud

was summer lace,

                             or a mind storing

other  lives she had lived

in old world cities

 

and sent home creased

on onion skin.

                      The envelope

 

stamped with bird postage

and sealed with her saliva. Sea water

                 rolled off the tongue

 

                        that had canto'd

the pines of  Rome, the spires of Prague, the green

                       crossing at Giverny.
_____________________________________________________________________
 

 I have always loved two poems by Ferlinghetti, "Monet's Water Lilies Shuddeingr" and  "Constantly Risking Absurdity about  The  hire wire performer who tries to keep his balance just like the poet who must keep his or hers performing their craft  The first has alluded its way into the description of the woman sitting at the café table. But what really struck or inspired me was an interview Ferlinghetti recently gave to PBS discussing his view of poetry and the changing scene in San Francisco. He laments how hi tech has come in rudely and made the artistic city a place of rich real estate and almost non-caring residents. I also thought of how he might portray/interact with/define a woman poet who is sitting there like a figment/ghost from another era imbued with its Bohemian grace and wanderlust.