Nameless Street, San Francisco Poem

Bless this nameless street
near Divisadero.
Its drizzle-watered window boxes
Its gay men tending tiny gardens and walking bulldogs
Determined to carry on unaffected by traffic, tourists and me.

Why does the misted air charm
these pastel houses?
Why does the gloom of five o’clock December
Make every porch light and front window shimmer?
Every bundled homecoming walker a romantic figure?
Every shopgirl carrying flowers to her flat
An impressionist painting?

I think it is me, growing old
and losing my flint.
Finally succumbing to wistfulness from the loss that claims us all.
I no longer dream, but see in ordinary things what I remember longing for
When dreams were still more plentiful than tears.

Or perhaps it really is just
this nameless street.
Singing a thrumming, human song
I’ve never noticed before today.