The Old Hippies

My Old Volkswagen Bus

We painted our Winnebago orange and put decals on the side

It wasn't the same though as the two of us in 1972

Crammed in a Westfalia van with bicycles on top

 and babies in the back, ketchup on the rug

It wasn't the same at all when we camped beneath cold stars

in a 2010 motor home from California though we

painted it orange and put flowers on the side.

Our RV with "countless creature comforts" and a "smooth ride"

seemed to our paunchy and arthritic bodies less a joy

Than our old Volkswagen bus when we were youths.

But was it the old bus or was it that our joints were supple then

And we were happy two of us with the babies in the back

Before our paunchy and arthritic bodies slowed the pleasure

of a home in Riverbend and cash to buy

a new RV so we might see our children

in California or perhaps the West Coast

It's not the same

My arthritic knees can't bike no more

The neighbors stare at our old van

in the back yard with flowers growing from the windows.

It's pretty and I'm getting old but still the new RV

Like my brain remembers Mama Cass and flowers

And is happy, shiny, new like my husband and I were

In 1972. Perhaps our children and their children will remember

The Winnebago orange and

decals on the side this century not last

Like we were to our parents then,

A symbol.