A Coney Island of the Mind, 19

              In woods where many rivers run
                                              among the unbent hills
       and fields or our childhood
                                      where ricks and rainbows mix in memory
although our ‘fields’ were streets
                              I see again those myriad mornings rise
      when every living thing
                                            cast its shadow in eternity
            and all day long the light
                                                 like early morning
                    with its sharp shadows shadowing
                                                                   a paradise
                           that I had hardly dreamed of
                                                         nor hardly knew to think
                   of this unshaved today
                                               with its derisive rooks
               that rise above dry trees
                                              and caw and cry
    and question every other
                               spring and thing

From A Coney Island of the Mind. Copyright © 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.