Twelve, Five, Sixty

On December 5, 1960, I had driven across the old San Mateo Bridge in the morning, and then back home later as the sun was setting.  It looked so unusually beautiful that day, that I wanted to be able to capture it in my minds eye.  To create this memory, I decided to try to describe it in rhyme.

I stopped the car as soon as I got off the bridge that evening on the Hayward side, by the Leslie salt flats, and wrote my thoughts.

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With hills of brownish green

And bay a calm as a peaceful stream,

The sight was like a beautiful dream

Of what is possible could ever seem.

Not a cloud was in the sky.

No smog got in your eye.

The day was quite unusual - like

Meeting a man who could never die.

Today's was a sight not often seen

Around our beautiful bay of green;

For the air is not often so clean

As 'twas from six am to eight this evening.

The bay looked as if 'twere lighted below

By lights caught in he undertow;

And only one who saw it would know

That it was a most marvelous show.

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