Two "Old Hippie" poems

An Old Hippie Reflecting

In the 60s, we protested everything,

the “man,” the “establishment,” the order of things

that would beat us down, define for us

a way to be, a way to live, a freedom less free,

restricted, fighting to hold us in, align us,

even as we fought to break it down, beat it back,

the moral courage to say no, “Hell, no,

we won’t go,” but we did, going or leaving, dying,

dead, and sex and drugs and rock and roll,

Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix, and Beatle-mania, “all you need

is love, love is all you need,” in this age of Aquarius

and Kent State’s violence, Black Panthers, placards waved,

tie-dye shirts, shaggy hair, and a war we feared,

sucking us in, spitting us out, broken, confused, unsure –

our search for wholeness lost in searching.

 

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An Old Hippie Still Reflecting

We dreamed big then, hallucinogenic,

bright color tripping, uninhibited daring

supporting what was right, humanity’s right

to Peace, to love, to the freedom to be

just what we were, young, the American Dream

brought to fruition, an end to war

and the police state gunning us down,

an ideal, perhaps, too big, unimaginable

except in youthful visions idyllic,

inexperienced, as we were told, “you

don’t really know,” but we did, we knew,

knew in the questions we asked, the answers we sought;

“How many roads MUST a man walk down?”

they asked us, Peter and Paul and Mary,

and we set off on our own road, walking,

to find out, to answer the questions of our time;

and I sit here now, resting on the back porch

of age and distance, still dreaming, and I ask myself

still, now as then, “… how many seas MUST the white dove sail?”

and the answer comes back, my friend, “the answer

is blowing in the wind,” a wind still blowing.