Connie Post and Mayor of Livermore

Connie reading her poem for Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for Livermore Downtown, February 2006

THE UNVEILING
(written for the ribbon cutting ceremony for Livermore Streetscape project Feb 2006)

Pull back the curtains of a street
And find secret stones
Remember the texture,

The way the roadway sounds
Beneath your shoes

Remember a quiet conversation
At a dinner table
A white tablecloth,
a moment
A street lamp
A cuisine in the valley

A change you’ve always known was coming
You have watched the paving
The cement torn
The lights beckoning off, then on
Knowing there was something changing
In your city
In your pathway

You have taken the long way home
Let the streams of change run through
The center and around again

You have anticipated the unmasking
Waited for a city
To shake the hand of its own beauty
The moment is now

To witness an unveiling
 Look around you
Meet this moment
as if it’s the first time
You’ve seen your own town

Walk inside its fellowship,
Look to the benevolence of the sky
To one another
And walk this unveiled street 
As if you never have before

by connie post, Livermore Poet Laureate

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