Looking Back Into Tomorrow

By: Fee

Sitting up along the stone wall

Where the meadow meets the lane

Smoking someone’s stolen cigarettes

Riding downtown on a train

Drinking Pepsi from a bottle

T-shirts snowy white or midnight black

Straight-legged jeans and jackets

Freight trains on a well used track

Collars turned up like James Dean

Hair slicked back in a wave and curl

With a little dab of Brylcream

Bound to catch the eye of any girl

A few bucks in our pockets

We acted like we had money to burn

A lot of chores for that sawbuck

Back then we had to earn

A movie was a quarter though

Popcorn and a soda just a dime

You could take a girl to dinner

Without committing a major crime

I watched the birth of Rock and Roll

Then its British cousin came on strong

Traded my pompadour for long hair

For the ride we all just went along

Bell bottoms jeans and paisley shirts

I’ll admit I once owned a few

Even had me fringed vests and boots

That was just what we had to do

Then disco tried to take control

With clunky shoes and silk shirts

Roller derby madness dances

Girls flashing eyes and midi skirts

Then heavy metal hit the airwaves

A tortured screech of sound in a can

I think that was when I went country

Made Willie Nelson my main man

Oh I seen more than music change

I saw as on the moon a man walked

Saw a war get lost in Vietnam

Young men died as politicians talked

I saw the invention of colored TV

Microwaves and computers all new

I saw the reality of segregation

Heroes King and Kennedy shot down too

Now my years and wonders are ebbing

Perhaps I don’t hear the music anymore

Or my old eyes have become jaded

While my empathy I left at life’s door

So I’ll coast into tomorrow

Not race away from the past

Shake hands with the devil

But my prayers are made to last.