Porch Lights from 10th Street to the Botanical Garden

Lyrics

The glass is cool against my forehead.
The sun, just a memory of warmth.
A final orange smear over the ridge, north of here.

Down below, the first headlights ignite. A slow, red river heading south on Peachtree.
Across the way, a window goes from dark to blue. Someone's television.
Another, a warm yellow. A kitchen, maybe.
The grid asserts itself, block by block.
10th Street, a perfect line of gold.
This whole city, drawing itself with light.

And this is the corridor, saying goodnight.
Every lamp a quiet word. Every window, a dream starting.
This is the civic pulse in the dark.
My reflection in the glass, watching the story told
in a thousand porch lights.

It's October. The air has a chill I can't feel in here.
But I see it in the way that flag moves.
On the balcony of the building at 10th and Juniper.
The rainbow, a little faded since the parade.
A stubborn little patch of hope, holding on in the evening wind.
Still flying.

And it's part of the corridor, saying goodnight.
Every lamp a quiet word. Every window, a dream starting.
This is the civic pulse in the dark.
My reflection in the glass, watching the story told
in a thousand porch lights.

Then, past the dark expanse of the park... a new constellation is born.
The Garden lights begin their silent show.
Not the velvet-and-plaster stars of the Fox Theatre ceiling.
Not the pure, white gallery-light of the High's great atrium.
No, this is a living thing.
A million programmed LEDs, red and green and blue, chasing each other through the canopy walk.
Painting the surface of Lake Clara Meer with color it's never seen in the day.

My own lamp makes a ghost in the window pane.
Just one more light among the others.
Part of the breath.
Goodnight, corridor.
Goodnight, stubborn flag.
Goodnight, electric stars.
Goodnight, Atlanta.