The Times, They Are A'Changing

 

I was there and I was young and everyone was young and the world was young and we believed the world was changing and it was. 

Some of the changes were good. Some of the changes were bad. But it was not what we imagined. It never is, never was, never will be.

And then, too drugged, we missed the cosmic moment. We got trapped in our traffic jam on the way to Woodstock and the garden. Some of us made it even to the gates, chanting, dancing, shaking fists, brave behind our placards. We wanted the world, and wanted it now, when we should have wanted heaven and forever, and then fell back into sex and money and paranoia and confusion and joined the 27 Club or became disco zombies or learned to code and retreated to cyber monasteries or taught in Asia.

And now, oh God, flashbacks, it seems to all be happening over again. There are wars and rumours of war and rogue criminal governments and thought crime and racism and discrimination and tumult in the streets.

But something else is wrong, has gone wrong, has gone most utterly wrong. 

This time the bones creak, and no voices rise in song.

This time there is no music.