Aged in Baby Boom
Love us, Love our generation.
Aged in baby boom
pink and blue
toxic rattles
Raised on Punch and Judy punch lines,
Kennedy-tears, King’s dreams.
We stood, short, sightless,
mingled in knees among the hot August freedom crowd,
lanky and long in Levi’s
Our parent’s peacetime pleasures.
only polio stands between us and yesterday,
A painful span,
Festered on steel, suffocating, restricting fear.
Saturday morning friends, Monday enemies.
We smoked, we drank, we foul mouthed.
We protested our parents’ proud convictions.
We are Gloria Steinem’s daughters,
Crosby, Still and Nash’s Lady of the Island,
Chaka’s Everywoman.
John and Yoko’s nakedness
Aged in baby boom
The unleashed, unafraid, sincere
True
sons and daughters of the Revolution
Trust us,
for we love you as you are.
11/2/19
The night, with everything humid
Took us to the balcony
Current of fresh air, the moon also ripe
Amidst queries – we reached about stars
Why the luminance, clusters, variance?
Non astrologer, She did a best
But one premise struck
Each man has one up there
She answered – to everywoman too
Where is mine?
That, she pointed: the brightest.
Why . . . what about yours then?
Mine is in you, son
The place in your father’s house.
And She was my mother!
(Tribute to Elizabeth Adetutu Ojo)