Cicada X 2004: Ubi Sunt
Born 1946
Seventeen years is a long time to sleep.
The thrumming brood welcomed me to Washington
With a carpet of bugs dead and quick.
Seventeen years.
Where is Ronald, who dozed
Fitfully in the White House
Without a single building
Or airport to his name?
Where is Michael, who ruled
A crumbling empire,
Riding hard the bucking dialectic?
Where is Bill, who governed
Arkansas and there learned
The art of precision speech?
Where is George, who studied
oil and money in Houston and soberly
Plotted victory for good old Dad?
Where is John, who put aside
His rebellious youth and in the Senate
Engaged the ways of governance and getting along?
Where is Monica, who learned
Of changes and differences, and,
A proud thirteen, hoped she'd meet
A kind and famous man one day?
Where is Britney, who had the moves
At a precious five and knew for sure
She would turn out to be a star
Reader; already, she had learned to
Tie her shoes, I'll bet, and Paris Hilton, too?
Where is Avril, who toddled in the terrible twos
Like a champ, feeling the way it really is,
Life after pablum and diapers?
There stand I.
I lived in a loving family of three.
My wrinkles were etchings. My belly was flat.
I dreamed.
Seventeen years is a long time to sleep.
Welcome, Cicada X: The shortest hand on the clock.
Cicada X is the name given to the 2004 brood of the 17-year cicada. The species last awoke in the mid-Atlantic region in 1987.
Dramatis personae: President Ronald Reagan, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush, Senator John Kerry, former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, singers Britney Spears and Avril Lavigne, and model Paris Hilton.
DayPoems Poem No. 2682
<a href="http://www.daypoems.net/poems/2682.html">Cicada X 2004: Ubi Sunt by Timothy Bovee</a>
The DayPoems Poetry Collection, www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor
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