Remember Those Years

They were the first of aspiration,
the last of certainty. They were the
truest, the sweetest
    the cruelest.

Our young eyes saw so
keenly then—weren’t the
colors brighter, the
curves rounder, the sky
ingenuous blue,
and the sound of our voices like
the heartened clatter of water
    on the vinyl and chrome of those days?

Remember those years
when the giddy swell of the music
bustled through red and blue-lit rooms,
the twanging doowop downtown beat,
from exotic cities south and west
and those doleful balladeers,
their fluid laments, the
unspoiled harmonies, clear
    and sweet as cherry coke.

How we danced the gleeful dances
strolled, twisted, stomped
or stole away for a breathless moment
when we’d want for
only he
only she,
and but the nervous brush
of a cheek, the misadventure of
a hand
and our baffled hearts would open
    like the wings of birds

We made our little armies; we
flew our flags, clashed in rumors,
gossip, feints --
trim callow societies
in ardent rehearsal
for the long hard clashes to come
for the hard dances,
    the hard hours

You saw us then in rows, lines, stands,
collisions, convocations;
we roared and taunted,
chastened and cheered our team,
sang our anthem
even then
even now
    loud thy praises ring.

And in the gray and faded photos
trim and combed
in flashing wool sweaters,
white blouse corduroy pinafore
blessed children of the blessed
our small faces like blossoms
    glistening with promise

How quickly the years
drew their children into account.
Born in the
afterbirth of war,
we have seen the
soulless wrench of war;
been owned by war,
surpassed the precept of war,
watch the new season of war
    with clouding eyes.

We have ridden the waveform
on which time is rubric,
become captains, technicians,
counselors, merchants--
and steely grand magicians
or soldiers to the heartland
and some at last fallen
tricked out in deep penumbral spaces
in thoughts marshaled by
    the grim exactitude of madness.

We have our own children now
and our children have children.
They’ve stolen our trajectory and
tumble across the world
seeking what fortunes might be found
from methods and schemes, from
pushing on to play out
their part in the script
on the wide stage
    in the long story

But, you remember those years
when he was graceful,
and she was fair,
and you loved and hoarded love
And your heart was broken
and mended, and
broken again
and some of our hearts
surpassed their expectation,
and some lie now retracted
    seeking but rest and surcease.

See then what we’ve known of life,
our collective eyes counting
the half-century
where humanity burst through
vacuumed skies to touch
what had been pristine,
and the fitful machines
rose in tides;
    the gay music darkened.

We stood witness to
the rise and fall,
to the conceit
of nations
to the spire and abyss
of spirit,
and saw
that the stem of history
could be so
irredeemably bent
by a pointed shard
    of senseless rushing metal.

Have we learned life’s secrets,
that all is secret, that time
writes with a furious hand
    does not heal all wounds?

Have we seen the
bleak fiction of leaders,
the spiral of anger,
the betrayal of lovers,
the day-breadth joy
    of a child’s face?

Remember those years.

Bonded by inception,
you and I were there
in the cradle days when we
began each other, when we
taught each other
the regulations
of life, aimed each other across
the indiscernible distance and
pulled the cords,
and the parts of us fused
and became
    the parts of each other.

We carry those parts forward now
and reassemble them into
restless elements of consciousness
before they at last coalesce to
glance mute and reflective
    through dimming memory.

We gather when we can,
while we can,
recount our epic,
wonder, have we now
strutted our hour upon the stage,
taken our fifteen minutes
    of fame?

And I think now of you.
And I think in all those stars
you were the bravest, the fleetest;
even now your flare
illumines the rolling sky
as I turn these pages,
read the small, daft handscripts
written so long ago—
see us then,
see us now, tending the
downward arc of our lives,
ever resilient, ever willful,
caring
while the heart revolves
while the mind entertains
while the day beckons
while the light abides
    to remember those years.

-- Terry Boothman

Author's note: the "you" of the poem refers to no one in particular, but to all of us collectively. I realize that much of the language and metaphor is inaccessible. It was a battle between clarity and "the poem that wanted to write itself." The latter was a formidable opponent.