We lived in Sacramento three days a week this past year. I enjoyed the differences between San Francisco and Sacramento. There is the heat and cold, both of which are more in Sacramento, and the glorious deciduous trees. They bring back memories of New England and Upstate New York.

South Land Park Twilight

Heat of the day still radiates from cement and brick
but a cool delta breeze is rippling the ginkgo leaves.
In our new backyard they join the softer Japanese maples
to susurrate with trembling flutters not the rattle
of eucalyptus or prickle of coast live oak.

This is will be the third night in our part-time home.
People are friendlier in Sacramento, perhaps all that ice cream.
It is so bright I need prescription sunglasses.
So hot that the air-conditioner is a gift from heaven.
So many flip-flops it could be a So-Cal college campus.

The glory is the trees—mature, spreading, or sequoia tall,
such variety in patterns of shifting sunlight
on young green, bark and branch.
They tell me the ginkgo trees confetti the autumn lawn
with golden fans.