On Revisiting the Bay Area

hurtling back in time over the railroad earth,

jerk-swaying over the rail joints,

breaking out from beneath the bay

into the bright spring light,

garish on the Oakland row houses,

the strobe-flash glimpses of tired, dirty buildings and streets

flashing by in near sync with the memory fragments

of those times when young seemed eternal hallmark

and we were inventing a new way

of living, loving, and being against the old backdrops

of war, greed and aesthetic numbness,

the new world way bursting into being...

but…but…

...but now in this shabby, littered time capsule,

that ago is mere dream remembered,

as we jerk-sway back and forth

in what seems more hearse than train,

abashedly traveling to honor yesterday’s wedding

as best we can,

so full of the rue-wisdom futility

that soddens the spirit

and sees in the sad Oakland streets

more emblematic truth

than in all the gay patch-quilt colors

of yesteryear's painted corpse.