Songs of Experience

Hey
out there
you bloggers
and readers
and lovers of words.
Have any of you
ever tried to write a
gulp
novel?

My 14 year-old was writing this poem around the same time I posted “Introspection.”
Musta been something in the air. Or was it a full moon?

The 19-oughts were industrial,
Monopolies ruled the nation.
The tens had WWI,
Creating a sensation.

Roaring twenties had a boom,
As stocks and credit soared,
Leading to thirtie’s depression…
Unemployment, dust storms, and more.

Second world war came in late ‘41,
With a huge united force,
But fifties wanted calm,
With suburbia’s birth, of course.

In came sixties…
Rebellion! Revolution!
Anything at all,
Against common institution.

Seventies turned the world,
Just a bit TOO far.
It was no longer about the issues,
Just stoners and guitars.

The eighties and ninties were odd,
Not much happening politically.
But was that a bit of a front?
A false reality?

Now we’re in 2007,
A new millennium.
Things are starting to happen now,
But little is being done.

I don’t want “time travel”,
To re-live the past.
But don’t you think it’s time,
For another movement at last?

Choose an issue,
Pick a side.
CARE about what’s going on,
Don’t just hide.

Don’t hide in your sports,
Your gossip, TV, clothes.
Narcissism ISN’T RIGHT,
But the self-obsession grows.

Something needs to happen,
Or nobody will care,
About anything at all,
Except their makeup and hair.

I’m not saying I’m perfect,
Or my ideas are right.
Just try to leave your own little world,
And come into the light.

- sj kerwin

“It is in the nature of things to change. Nothing can last beyond its given time. And I think that instinctively we know what that time is. What is it that makes us know when the summer turns? The smallest shift in the light? The slightest hint of chill in the morning air? A certain rustling of the leaves in the birches? That is how it is – suddenly, in the midst of the summer heat, you are overcome by a tightening of your heart. The realization that it will all come to an end. And that brings a new intensity to everything: the colors, the smells, the feeling of sunshine on your arm.”

from, Astrid and Veronika

My daughters all had birthdays this spring/summer. They went from being 13, 9, 5 (still little girls, really) to 14, 10, and 6. One year shouldn’t make all that big a difference, but I felt a shift …. the smallest shift in light … in my life. Sarah Jane will be going to high school – HIGH school – and will be running on the amazing CHHS cross-country team. Her voice sounds like a grown-up on the phone, a bit raspy and confident (like a sorority girl or a college soccer player – you know the sound? a too-deep voice, almost a bark). Anyway, she’s not a little girl anymore. Neither is Rosie or even Lizzie, my “baby.” I saw a TV show last night where the mother of a 9 and 13 year-old said, “I’ve done the mom thing, now its time to focus on me.” Yuk. I don’t want to focus on me – how boring. I’ve been with ME for 45 years. This new generation of American adults who have fallen prey to the consumer propaganda of beautifying self (to the point of carving up actual body parts with plastic surgery, yikes!) and finding self and loving self, and self-care, self-help, self-exploration, self-discovery, blah blah blecchh, bores me to tears. I want to go screaming back to the Vales of Har.*

Maybe Benjamin J. Barber feels the same way:

What about you?
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