(a) Reduced Times

No West to be won
No war to end war
No deserts to bloom
No Europe to liberate

No Freedom Rides
No war to end poverty
No summer of love
No men on the moon

No Nuclear Freeze
No Evil Empire
No morning in America
No new world order

A torch not passed but dropped
Progress not made but stopped

Not even flying cars.

(b) Days of Miracle and Wonder

Smallpox appears not in newspapers
not even in medical literature
but in history books.
So does Fascism.

No concrete wall divides Berlin.
No Iron Curtain divides Europe.
And if the blood dimmed tide still flows
At least we recognize, fitfully,
The need for dams.

Knowledge is no longer the province
of the lucky, the chosen or the rich.
Today I can speak to my computer
As if it were a pet.
Tomorrow it will speak to me
As if it were a friend.
And we will no longer be alone.

My students will walk on Mars.
Their children will be born there.
The world is shrinking daily
and maybe, just maybe, we are growing
to meet it.

My mother will live to see eighty
With a whole mind.
I will live to see two centuries
With a whole body.
My children might live to see eternity
With a whole soul.