Awakened by the smell of freshly cut grass,
mower humming below the window:
Weekend Dad.
Slanted ceilings of my bedroom
frame my adolescent fantasies.
Stuffed Puddinhead, soft faded arms, always-smiling-face
looks down from her perch above my pillow.
Tentative turn of my radio alarm clock’s plastic knob:
April and June woke me with assassinations
Black and white, back-to-back, MLK and RFK.
Political awakening framed by political violence –
phrases unknown till college, where and when
I will protest the war that wanted
to send my brother and friends away.
Still, I turn the knob
hoping instead to hear WLS deliver my musical awakening.
Its tinny single speaker serenades with tunes of the turbulent times –
Hendrix pleads that “There must be some way out of here,”
The Beatles talk about a Revolution.
Lyrics that speak of our culture’s dark side, revealed and unraveling,
Songs forever paired with my evolving understanding of America.
Once awakened, dreams forever changed.