Perhaps it was the leaded gasoline that did it.
Gone too late in all our happy motoring,
the burnt aftermath lingering in our cells,
permeating our formative years, our young-country brains,
so much soft mineral marking our fantasies,
we believed we were super-powered, turbo-charged,
we thought we could fly like dragons through the sky,
but we were only falling,
and it was such a long way down,
all that lead now a weight we must carry,
a burden of ignorance, innocent or arrogant,
heavy and awkward, we are, and stupidly defiant,
we no longer know what it means to walk on the Earth,
fooled by the illogic of too many rockets,
too many silver bullets,
too many horses under our hoods,
the blowback from combustion unfathomable
to our enfeebled swiss-cheesed understanding,
our Augean stables now full to the rafters,
and where, pray tell, is our Hercules?
And where did we put all the shovels?