In Those years

In those years, people will say, we lost track / of the meaning of we, of you / we found ourselves / reduced to I / and the whole thing became / silly, ironic, terrible: / we were trying to live a personal life / and yes, that was the only life / we could bear witness to // But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged / into our personal weather / They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove / along the shore, through the rags of fog / where we stood, saying I