Refrain

Old melodies
galvanize our memories.

Durable as metalplate,
they spring to action,

when car radios issue classics
and we hum along:

Glenn Miller, the Beatles, Madonna –
each evokes the ghost of its time.

Visions of jitterbugs
dance in our heads,

or protest marches,
disco mirrorballs,

or some moment that defined us:
meeting a future wife,

a best friend’s death,
the day you bought that old Chevy.

These soundtracks of youth
move us most, pull the psyche

back to when we passed
from innocence to confidence.

Archived dreams transfix us
like mosquitoes in amber,

stuck in the sap of prehistory,
frozen in the moment

when our wings would sing at sixteen,
and we’d feast on the blood of the world.

09/23/2001

Posted on 09/23/2001
Copyright © 2024 Bruce W Niedt