Was it a childhood?
Or just a sepia dream,
With daily bottled milk and bread,
Cookie-dough and cream.

Were the seasons four-by-four?
With frogs in all the creeks,
Miles of ice on polar caps,
And snow on all the peaks.

Were the sporting teams all stocked
With men who never cussed?
Was the country ever run
By people you could trust?

Did appliances leave the plants
Designed to last for years?
As people danced through streets at night,
And spared no thought for fears.

My mind tells me I ran and played
With worries, not a one.
And everything was as approved,
By a smiling sun.

That everyone else was happy too,
Society was kinder.
And the biggest challenge facing me
Was love, and where to find her.

But has memory washed things black and white?
And scraped the rest away,
Substituting certainty,
For any shade of grey.

There seems to be a disconnect,
With the modern plight.
Nothing that we sit with now,
Just happened overnight.

The present is at dissonance,
With tropes that mask as truth.
Clearly we can ill afford
The certainty of youth.

And still I sit, with past in hand,
Paying it a visit.
My heart still labels history grand,
My head says – well now, is it?

Bryson Thomas