Old Shanghai was dying, losing between three and six streets a day. The modern city was strangling it among its many skyscrapers. Soon, in a few years at most, it will have disappeared. Yet, through ... [+]
Are we there Yet?
Where are we now?
I suddenly feel like I have been awakened
from a long sleep
in the back of a car
traveling a monotonous interstate
for 50 years
with only the faint memory of a radio
playing in my dreams.
I look around and do not recognize the landscape
or my fellow travelers
and who the he'll is that driving?
Why haven't we reached our destination?
Are we there yet?
Where are we now?
Has our moral compass been shattered,
Or is it malfunctioning from alien interference?
What happened to the quest,
the journey,
the drive to change our destiny,
where are the blithe spirits
that danced naked in golden gate
and slithered through the mud at Woodstock
with dreams of new tomorrow's,
who burned their identities and brassieres on statehouse steps?
Are we there Yet?
Where are we now?
Did we get lost
when parenthood and daily routine
invaded our lives?
Was it a wrong turn
or have we been overcome
with the fear of only having
a one-way ticket?
Are we there Yet?
Where are we now?
Why hasn't that seed
planted by the rebellious youth of new awareness
blossomed into the utopian jungle of Rousseau?
Was it shorn by unrelenting doubt,
or by the fascist gardeners of complacency?
Are we there Yet?
Where are we now?
And who the he'll is that driving the bus?!