THEY

They came on like a great white wave
on a stale calm ocean,
like a cleansing rain
after a long summer drought,
like the first light of dawn
after a somber night.

There was something in the stars,
perhaps the alignment of the planets
at the time of their birth,
that sparked their lives with a passion,
an idealism we had long forgotten.
The generation of my peers
had stuffed themselves into a phone booth
or gone on panty raids.
The one before had swallowed goldfish
or climbed flagpoles.

But THEY were of a different mold.
They searched, and questioned, and prodded,
and refused to accept the unacceptable.
They held up a mirror
we did not want to look at.

They marched for civil rights
and went on moratoriums
to protest the war in Vietnam.
They rebelled against
the materialism of their parents
and the hypocrisy of their priests,
the shallowness of their education
and the injustices of their society.
They campaigned for McCarthy and McGovern
and insisted on honesty in government.

They marched on Washington
for the poor people,
for the Blacks, for the Indians.
They listened to Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan
and burned their draft cards
and chained themselves to the gates
of the White House.

They grew long hair and beards,
smoked dope and went on spiritual trips on LSD.
They became so numerous
we found them among our own children.

They held sit-ins and love-ins
and came from all over to celebrate Woodstock.
They were reproached by their parents
and scorned by society,
clubbed in Chicago by the police
and killed at Kent State by the National Guard.

They dropped out of college to get an education.
They read Siddhartha and The Bhagavad Gita
and Be Here Now.
They took their knapsacks and their sleeping bags
and hitched around the country
looking for a better way.
They learned Yoga and meditation,
ate organic foods and sought out Indian wisdoms.
They lived communally on the land
and in the cities
and turned to music and crafts.
They returned their father's check
and his entreaties to "Come home".
They joined hands together across the land
and Omed at potluck dinners
in communal houses everywhere.
They sat on a mountain and looked at the sunset
and were sure they had spoken to God.

They dug their gardens and planted their seeds
in a soil that was hard to the yield.
They struggled with housing and minimum wages,
and the transmission on their beaten up van.
They lived with old ladies and had a few babies,
children they couldn't afford.
So they went on welfare and collected food stamps
and just took any old job.

They got tired of struggling to make a new world
and slowly came back to the old.
They cut their hair and shaved their beards
and replaced the joint with a beer.
They took jobs in mills,
became carpenters and electricians
and went out and bought a TV.

They got to be thirty and dispersed in the crowd
but things will never be the same
because they left their mark
and shook our foundation
and God never gave them a name.

Jay Frankston
wlp@mcn.org