In Golden Gate Park that day a man and his wife were coming along thru the enormous meadow which was the meadow of the world He was wearing green suspenders and carrying an old beat-up flute in one hand while his wife had a bunch of grapes which she kept handing out individually to various squirrels as if each were a little joke And then the two of them came on thru the enormous meadow which was the meadow of the world and then at a very still spot where the trees dreamed and seemed to have been waiting thru all time for them they sat down together on the grass without looking at each other and ate oranges without looking at each other and put the peels in a basket which they seemed to have brought for that purpose without looking at each other And then he took his shirt and undershirt off but kept his hat on sideways and without saying anything fell asleep under it And his wife just sat there looking at the birds which flew about calling to each other in the stilly air as if they were questioning existence or trying to recall something forgotten But then finally she too lay down flat and just lay there looking up at nothing yet fingering the old flute which nobody played and finally looking over at him without any particular expression except a certain awful look of terrible depression
From A Coney Island of the Mind. Copyright © 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.