be

outside my window i see the leaves
have begun flight for a new season,
falling away as the years seem to do
when you spot a younger version of
yourself, when you see your parents
in their twenties, when you cross
the negatives of an unseen past. it's
strange to think he was younger in
this photo than i am today. a guess
tells me this was taken in the late eighties,
in a living room in louisiana by a
celebrated photographer named mom,
whom i can just picture smiling in that
house, squinting behind the lens saying
“alright guys look serious.” we were
living on base in those years, the cold war
was coming to an end, and though i was
clueless about my existence at that age,
it's clear now i was just starting to leave
clues for myself in childhood. thirty years
later i still pick up the paper, and dad
and i still catch up on the times.
this year's front-page story? it 
seems yogi berra already wrote it:
"the future ain't what it used to be"