60's Child

60's Child I found myself at the tail end of childhood then, Coming out of its long sunny sleep; The days and nights of pleasures, terrors and wonders Strung together to make up the pitted landscape Of being small Still filled my world and made it whole. Mostly i remember things like: Summer crab feasts, "I Love Lucy" rerunsm "Laugh-In" bits, the drone of ball games on t.v., Trips into town to my Grandfather's old store For candy and comics Back before my town became Yuppie Central. Another child raised beneath the cathode rays' glow, My mind absorbed images,words with only hinted meanings - Like the smiling faces in the cigarette ads And the offhand reports of body counts From some faraway, makebelive war, i heard and felt the many signs of strain Between the longhaird Bigger Kids and their parents; But not for me their world of confused revolt. That would come later, and was milder in my case When I became one of their second, weaker, wave. No, I stepped out of the close land of childhood Just after it was all over, And I've wondered ever since, Just what it was I'd missed, or hadn't By dint of being a kid of the fabled 60's.