finding myself backwards

who was I
in the millennium year
two thousand
zero zero

who was I
in seventy-two
when politics changed
and the lefties rose up

who was I
what was I doing
when Apollo
went to the moon

who was I
in nineteen fifty-six
when the Olympics came
to Melbourne

who was I
back then

I was forty-four
I was thereabouts
I was alone
and a loner

I was a teenage kid
still excited
by what might be
in my lifetime

my classmates and me
on the floor
in our assembly room
watching black and white
and grey
on the brand new
school tee-vee

I was just
a babe in arms
in Germany
on the way from nowhere
to somewhere

who knew where

who knew what

who
knew anything
back then

~

Poem #502 from a series of poems drawn from the imagination and collected as: a Bachelard reverie.