Signpost, Contrails, the Sierras
Leah Stenson reading ‘Changin’ Times’
Changin’ Times
In the days of our first happiness
we shared a second story apartment
in a rundown college town,
fragrance of lilacs filling our bedroom
through the open window.
In the evenings, we’d ride
to the top of the hill
and on the way down,
drink a couple of chilled Buds
from the Baby Bear Market.
The night we threw a party,
Martin distilled ethanol
we mixed with Kool-Aid
in the bathtub.
Everyone was stoned, drunk,
or both, and Barry fell
from the veranda
to the flower bed below.
That was the summer
of Woodstock,
epitome of high times.
A half century later, we hesitate
to drink more than a glass
of champagne.
These days, we get high
on psychedelic sunsets
orchards in bloom
endless starry nights.
_______________
Leah Stenson
Review by Jared Pearce
I wonder why the speaker mentions the “epitome of high times” when it seems that the speaker is not necessarily sorry to make the exchange that’s been made over the course of the poem? My favorite details are those in the first third of the poem: specific, concrete, showing the relationships. Maybe, then, those images in the final third don’t quite hold as much depth, and thus the epitome happening in the middle?