Ode – The Arc of Our Life in Five Acts

A Reminiscence for the Class of '71 Alumni

on the Occasion of Our 55th Year Reunion

Davidson College

June 6, 2026

Act 1 – Schrödinger’s Capsules

On December 1, 1969

They were pale blue and hollow 

    as a politician's promise of peace, 

        deadly as punji stakes in hidden pits 

that riddled the paths in Vietnam. 

    These plastic capsules were armed with slips 

        that bore all the birthdays of draft-age men. 

And so it would go – the course of our lives 

    decided by lottery. Better odds, 

        we supposed, than surviving the rapture. 

Gallows humor masked the angst 

    as networks aired the Special Report 

        sponsored by Quantas and Kool Cigarettes.

Do you recall that damnable hand 

    sifting the bin for its first victim? 

        Who could breathe as implacable fate     

grasped a capsule and pulled out the slip. 

    For a dreadful second, all our birthdays 

        quivered in superposition 

        

that settled on a single date 

        when read into reality:  

 

September 14 ... 

        I heard a curse from a nearby dorm. 

April 24 ...   

        A buddy muttered and slammed the door. 

December 30 ...  

        Someone slumped in their seat. 

I was breathing easy when they came for me. 

    The future had smiled on the foresight 

        to be born number 343. 

Act 2 – Stayin' Alive 

On the 70s

None of us would die in 'Nam 

    as we scattered through the 70s

    bearing our anthems and ideals. 

Neither could survive unscathed –

    ideals evolve and music moves on. 

The times they kept a'changing. 

We were the early Boomers 

    who grew up with Doo-Wop,  

    and gleaned ideals from Dylan; 

who swayed to soul 

    and shagged to the Tams 

    in pavilions by the sea; 

who grooved to the Byrds, 

    rocked to the Stones, 

    and tripped with Jimi Hendrix; 

who booked a seat on the Mystery Tour 

    then hitched a Magic Carpet Ride 

    and flew the Dark Side of the Moon;

who yearned for the freedom of Bobby McGee

    and the reckless abandon of Janis 

    wailing a song of longing and loss. 

We whose souls were Born to be Wild 

    were soothed by Judy Blue Eyes 

    and saw ourselves as stardust. 

We who had gone to Scarborough Fair 

    and found the wisdom to Let It Be 

    learned to relax with a natural high. 

We lived to see our music neutered, 

    herded into Oldies pens 

    and trotted out to serve nostalgia. 

We saw the best songs of our generation 

    shoved aside by the machine beats 

    and peacock posers preening 

    in discotheque dance halls.

Oh we have a right to resent disco,

    we have our reasons to grieve. 

Act 3 – Mourning in America 

On the 80s through the 00's

It could not have been dodged,

    that restless night in the early aughts 

when jolted awake in the wee hours 

    the time came for accounting. 

Was it morning in America 

    when we loosened our youthful ideals 

and launched the prime of our lives?

    Who even bothered to bat an eye 

when those who had thrilled to Thoreau 

    and thought they bore Ulysses' soul 

began to resemble Telemachus

    subdued by the duties that rule our lives? 

We took the well-trod adult path 

    pursuing the usual professions 

wielding white shirts and conservative ties. 

    As we clawed our way through the 80s 

we cradled babies, watched over toddlers, 

    traded coupes for minivans, 

drove our youths to soccer camps, 

    then dropped them off at freshman dorms ... 

 

Now into the silence that swept our lives 

    an emptiness entered as well, 

that uneasy stillness that fills a day 

    and whispers unbidden thought:

    It's time to weigh the world we wrought 

    against the world we dreamed could be, 

    to pray with the ache of desperation 

    and mourn again for America.

Act 4 – Okay Boomer  

On the teens and 20s

They were subtle at first, the signs, 

the moments that may have meant little, 

the brief encounters that culminate 

in the bittersweet conviction. Oh 

don't bother denying what the world 

surely knows – you and I are old. 

We're as far from the fall of Saigon 

as we freshmen were from Verdun. 

Now the sons of Viet Cong 

host our vets in swank hotels 

and the grandsons of saboteurs 

lead tourists through insurgent tunnels. 

The world that birthed us long since passed 

and now the days that shaped us fade.

Though we became what we could be 

the future breathes –Recede! Recede!

We see it in that sidelong glance, 

the furtive wink, a solemn nod 

as the teenage geek suppresses a smirk

fixing our frozen phone (again!).

 

We see it in the sullen clerk 

who rolls her eyes and taps her nails 

as we rummage through our wallets 

then fumble on our phones to pay,

We see it in the kindly mum 

yielding her seat on the subway, 

and we see it in that saintly nurse 

with her sweetly-patronizing smile, 

or in most any Waffle House

in the way a waitress calls us hun.

Our sons and daughters smile and sigh 

as we shuffle down the hallway 

(recalling a kiss, a son's first steps, 

a daughter's laugh, our father's death) 

only to enter the kitchen (again!) 

wondering what we came to get. 

But we are the sum of all that we were 

in our cursed and blessed years on Earth. 

We bought the right to roam eight decades 

and happily inhabit them all.

Act 5 – And Are We Yet Alive?

On the present time until

It always remains unwritten, 

        a page left intentionally blank, 

    an exercise assigned to survivors 

to see again through youthful eyes 

         the ever-fresh beginning 

     of a world that is always becoming. 

Friends, our final act is improv. 

        Until the moving hand moves on

    what will you write with the rest of your lives?