Jury Still Out?

 

from this week in 2009  (I was 64)

 

                   Jury Still Out?

When I sat down with friends fifty years ago

in the little park in the center of the little town

on its forest green benches on a late summer night

or in a warm corner booth of the Itasca Café

while the winter was a solid presence in the dark outside

and the mood grew serious as we saw our lives take shape

amid the indecisions doubts dreams and derisions

it seems to me now (or I am a fool of old age

or I misperceived the tenor of the time even then)

the talk would turn to the change we would impose

(by sheer will of our massive youthful numbers)

upon the town the state the nation and the world

The most certain unstated common assumption

(made less arrogant by our righteous ignorance)

was that our inclusive goodness would better the world