Niche

I was born the year Kennedy campaigned for a new frontier
before Vietnam
before the Beatles
before the Summer of Love
the decade synonymous with counterculture and revolution
didn’t swing until middle age.
The 1950s continued – predictable, hierarchical, complacent
God-fearing and unquestioning
an unchanged and unchanging world
until the baby boomers went to college.

The baby boomers :social structure demolition experts.
Marriage, sexism, racial inequality, single income families
the legal system, churches, governments, corporations
they took them all on – and inflicted defeat.
Inheritance is not always grateful
frequently dismissive of forebears
arrogance knows the present to be superior
impatience snatches for the baton change of generation.

Now middle aged hormones pound less vigorously
surety of superannuation and spectre of redundancy
have replaced the anticipation of a wild night
and  fear of uninvited consequences.
Reflection ponders the random entry to the world
and reign as young generation
after reliable contraception – before AIDS
between the cold of the iron curtain and the heat of terrorism.

Youth was too young to know the assassinations
or the draft
backpacks and sleeping bags grown out of before 9/11.

Still, age never seems quite right or comfortable
unable to look at either history or future without disdain.
Memory of vast impatience with the old
is unable to hear the doorbell of the new.
Time forces reluctant succession
abdication pouts imagining diminution.
The podium finish of the title of the young generation
has passed to the lesser deserving. An unfair eviction.