In youth abides 

no point of reference 

so how can it know 

what’s been left behind 

and how can it miss 

waves of grain, fruited plain, 

or good from sea to sea 

when all it can see 

is what happens right now, 

forever the same  

since the day it was born

twenty or so,  years ago

in which half was a daze 

and the other half in class 

and knowing the past 

is just something memorized.