the heart loves San Francisco
Contrast:
of land and water,
of heights and depths,
of past and future,
here in San Francisco Bay
tectonics, geology, and erosion
carved out one of the world’s great harbors,
we perch on the side of a hill,
buffered by the Marin Headlands,
against which waves and wind break,
Pacific moisture slips up and over
to shape large pine trees to point east
the way the wind is going,
and to the rising sun,
the bay is big to us
and tiny compared to the immensity of the Pacific,
which stretches from here halfway around the world,
here in this amazing city
East and West meet and mingle
like the air currents and the clouds above,
the spirit of our country at its best anchors here--
a natural beauty to hold and not spoil,
a cultural beauty with which to embrace possibility
and help it come to be,
anchored in the bedrock of the old
and reaching out to the new,
like each boat the harbor releases into the Pacific
and each boat it welcomes from all over the globs,
no wonder the heart loves San Francisco.
by Henry H. Walker
August 7, ’15
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