Did they sing to us, too,
These poets of the young and wistful,
Of the just discovered?

Were we, too, so fast conjoined
In giddy possibility?

Are we now consigned to a coarser reality?
Because a thing becomes familiar
Must it become less beautiful?
Time is a joke poorly told.

An old color photograph,
Its blazing reds and excruciating blues
Reduced to jaundiced dim browns,

Still cuts deep
Through all fog and wishing,
Blinding in its fierceness.