Born before the Higgs was theorized, born
before that moment when man questioned
if we had the right stuff, born
before a giant step and a flag that did not flutter...

It is adolescent dreams
that are missed most of all - how each day
is revealed in the pain; the swirling -
the forces that bind and unravel
playing out again and again in kisses
and drinks and mornings waking next
to a breast or hip of someone unknown
only hours before. It is the howling
at the night, a bottle in one hand
and the masked future, a raging trumpeter,
stirring the forces to live on despite it all.

Now contentment, a sated cat, laps
at hours and happily watches
children grow while weeks are worked
or novels written, well-worn paths trod
and gardens replanted until the evenings demand
to be snugged up to with a classical book.

Everything we are remembers who we were -
all our bosons and all the convictions they carry,
all the gatherings of leptons and quarks and their anti-cousins
remember…

Remember those wonderful mad and out of control
years when we were hadrons flying towards
the many collisions of our particle accelerator years.