Baby Boomer Ballad Sonnet We started out to change the world: to ease suffering, celebrate human potential, to distill our highest aims into change or works of art. And the dogs of disaster howled at our feet We worked and saved and some of us gave birth to professions or trades, to children, to busy ways of life with houses and cars, and votes for better mortgage rates. And the earth groaned under the weight of our needs. We divorced, remarried, became orphans, and retired. Fatigued by the weight of years, frightened by dim horizons, common truths became debatable context, we held our noses, saying: He, she, or they accelerated decay, but made a lot of money. The dogs of disaster will run among our graves; some of us will be laughing. We'll be born again, having cryoed our brains.