Ferlinghetti's Changing Light During a Pandemic

So already, when you walk along a beach very early in the morning, how can you not think about light* and the way that it changes? And that's what got me thinking this morning about Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "The Changing Light," one of the poems read on April 30, 2020 during the American Academy of Poets' "Shelter in Poems" virtual reading. You can hear composer-musician Stephin Merritt read it at Minute 56:45 of the reading video. 

I first met Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poetry--and through it, Goya's paintings--as a high school junior. The poem was "In Goya's Greatest Scenes," and it stayed with me, this depiction of war-time and "peace"-time suffering. Frankly, I think it was the line "groaning with babies and bayonets" that tattooed itself upon me. So visual and so audible, especially with the Vietnam War ongoing. Babies and bayonets: not two things I wanted to think about together, wanted anybody to think about together.

Ferlinghetti's "The Changing Light" is about San Francisco's light. It would have been easy to find a beautiful picture of San Francisco awash in beautiful light and post it here, but I didn't do that deliberately. Reader, you don't need any pictures of San Francisco's light. You only need Ferlinghetti's words and the blank space around them to get you to see and feel that light, to know what it is and isn't.

Ferlinghetti uses the word "light" ten times, usually with an adjective or prepositional phrase to modify it: we're asked to envision

Don't be deceived: this is a photograph of a floor!

• East Coast light
• pearly light
• sea light (twice!)
• island light
• light of fog
• veil of light
• vale of light

We travel through a day and cross oceans and borders to see and feel that light truly--I can't think of a word other than "truly" since Ferlinghetti goes to such pains to make sure we don't confuse San Francisco light with other kinds of light that it isn't. We need to understand that light truly if we're going to understand its magic. I know that "magic" sounds trite. But the poem isn't trite. And that's the whole point. The poem creates magic out of this routine yet glorious and uplifting daily progression. Really good poetry can and does evoke magic.

And may I share two other parts of the poem that just get to me? 

• First, I love the "sharp clean shadows" that make the sunlit city absolutely pristeen.
• Second, I love the stanza "And in that vale of light/the city drifts/anchorless/upon the ocean": I know that stanza is reminding me of another poem--I think it might be a French poem--in which the city moves like a ship or a vessel. But it also has me mesmerized by the idea of a big, sprawling, complex, ocean-liner-like place moving "anchorless," and thus on some level, free. Maybe I'm drawn to this stanza because I frequently feel myself drifting aimlessly and unmoored during this COVID-19 pandemic; or maybe it's because "anchorless" connotes the freedom to move anywhere, not an easy thing to do in these pandemic times.

It's interesting to note that Ferlinghetti is still alive--he turned 101 years old in March, which means he was born at the tail-end of the last pandemic. As a centenarian, he knows something about needing to shelter at home: According to the NPR Morning Edition reporters who did a feature on him when he turned 100, 

For Lawrence Ferlinghetti, living to be 100 is no fun. Speaking from his home in San Francisco recently, Ferlinghetti said he's practically blind now — he can't read, and he's skipping his big birthday bash at the bookstore he co-founded, City Lights in San Francisco.***

There is that city light again--this time in the name of the bookshop.**** And of course, the irony here is that this poet who could evoke such light can no longer see it. Some say sunlight kills the COVID-19 virus, but that's not why we crave light during times of darkness. Ferlinghetti's poem is there for us, ready to immerse us in light. I hope it works the same magic on him.

* Adjacent photo is screen shot from the HOW TO TINT YOUR FOG LIGHTS YELLOW video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqeqTxIZOfo. I like it because it looks like an eye, represents a change in light, and has to do with fog.
** Screen shot of Amtico Flooring: https://www.amtico.com/commercial/lvt/product-search/AR0AUA13/

*** Vitale, T. (2019, March 20). A Lost 'Little Boy' Nears 100: Poet And Publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Retrieved May 19, 2020, from https://www.npr.org/2019/03/20/704903571/a-lost-little-boy-nears-100-poet-and-publisher-lawrence-ferlinghetti

**** Photo included in the following blog: Coe, J. (2017, November 16). 24 Hours in San Francisco [Web log post]. Retrieved May 19, 2020, from https://www.backroads.com/blog/24-hours-in-san-francisco