Elbowmarks On My Window Sill

I sit and reminisce about the "good ol' days" The prelapsarian time before it all went sideways The details of life were all that I saw There was no rich, no poor, no petit bourgeois As an unbeknownst member of the proletariat I was in a state of semi-permanent merriment "Class" was not realized until I moved north And learned a simulacrum of poverty thenceforth Then I get nostalgic for the radical breakthroughs And the molting of all my sophomoric residues I remember when I thought I could see The world as it is in one, singular, reality I was sure I had glimpsed some recondite apparatus Guided by Providence and limitless afflatus Now I know how naïve I was on both counts That experience and wisdom are paramount I look at life through a clear, antiseptic lens And take a grain of salt with all my realizations I don't mistake ardor or fervor for absolute truth I don't swim around in the fountain of youth I remember the past fondly and store it away But focus my effort and gravitas on what I can do today