Next to Change

Social change is very strange

Once, the middle-aged smoked pipes

And creaked abroad in polished shoes

That scraped the rainy pavements

They once wore trilbies cut from autumn tweed

And only in the colours brown and green

And never smiled, like mourners paid to grieve

Today, the age of twenty-nine is young

And old men walk in match beside their sons

All ragged-jeaned and beachy, bright as day

Their canvas shoes disguising bunions

Social change is very strange