What was so unique,
So explosive about this day?
For ages energetics
Cybernetics and communies
Drop-outs, vegetarians
Potheads, earthlings, Moonies
Uncombed, unmarried couples
Blue-jeaned, bright-eyed, sturdy
Primarily under thirty
Had been opting for another
Less frenzied, less plastic
Less electric way.
What was so unique, so startling
Was not what but who.
Here was the majority
Silent, selfish, willing
To pay any price for comfort
And see that it survives
Doing what they—
Their parents and grandparents—
Had never before managed to do:
To accept responsibility
For everything
But everything that happens in their lives.