Auld Lang Syne

(from "Songs of Love and Hate")

I have often thought

Of my Grandma

On one New Year’s Eve

Long ago

Singing along loudly

With “Auld Lang Syne”

It was the only song

I heard her sing

In English

Her words and voice

Were full of joy

And regret

She felt every word

I wondered

What the song meant to her

Why it meant

So much

I think of her generation

Born in 1915

And how alien it seems

To have been born

So early in that century

Yet

When she was born

Surely

Her father and grandfather

Thought her foolish

And young

I think the same will occur

In a future

Not so far away

When a person of Gen Z

Is the age I am now

Or younger

Amazed that my birthdate

Is from during Viet Nam

And the Nixon years

How could I still be alive?

A living fragment of history

I saw the first

Space shuttle land

And saw two explode

I saw the towers fall

And I remember

I remember the Apple IIe

And the time

Before there was an Internet

I worked at a newspaper

My son was born

In the first year of

A new century

And a new millennium

Yet sadly

No one in the future

Will ever get to wonder

How curious that is

Or call him old