One slept soundly in those Adirondack nights,
blanketed in youthful exuberance from
acidic rain pollution heralding the Crack of Doom.

The fish we caught still fit for human consumption,
the marble statues not yet melting in city parks,
nor green pastures distributed with a browning blot.

No, time was far from reconciled with nature,
the child in us still curled up at the center,
our songs still clarion beneath a complicated sky.

You might say our mountains had a low grade fever,
that there were generous shadows sunning across our chest,
but, Midwest chimneys bilged us with their discharge.

I can't go back, reality too painful a guardian,
every mountain bivouac of boyhood long diseased.