Milwaukee beer topped with sea foam
Beau Fleuve of Buffalo suddenly becomes salt
Manhattan Island swept clean in sixteen seconds
Buried masts of Amsterdam arise
As the great wave sweeps on Eastward
To wash away over-age Camembert Europe
Mannhatta steaming in sea-vines
The washed land awakes again to wilderness
The only sound a vast thrumming of crickets
A cry of seabirds high over
In empty eternity
As the Hudson retakes its thickets
And Indians reclaim their canoes
The theme of this poem, is one of America (and Europe) being swept clean of the civilization that has taken it over. Ferlinghetti talks a lot about Indians and the idea behind this poem is giving the land back to the Indians the way it was before the settlers came.
Wild Dreams of a New Beginning