American Sea Change

A wave has crested

Change feels inevitable

Disillusionment is commonplace

Mistrust of the prevailing social order

Feels honest


It may not come during my lifetime

The wave of a nation is large

Measured in generations

Between crests

But it comes

And we feel it pulling at us

Plucking those taunt strings of meaning

That we have recently become so aware of

Sore muscles we didn’t know

A shift

Or a discovery

Of what the good life means to us

To our generation

Beginning to take power

Beginning to take responsibility


I’m ready for a change

The tune life is pulling from me

Compels me to move

To think

Not in refinements to what our parents did

But in wholesale change

Radical redefinition

Creative reinvention

Of our national self image

Of the American dream

Of the good life


A wave has crested

And a generation comes to power

Generation X

The first generation to be accelerated by technology

The first generation to be more mature than the preceding

The last generation that will remember the way it used to be

Before

The American sea change


We have been slow to move

But the tune is personal and compelling

And what we do is not rash

It is inevitable

And we all begin to feel the need

To move

Towards the only honest direction

That leaves hope for those that will replace us.