No Belle Epoque

Harken back like a melody/ Before we knew such misery/ We have the perfect memory of the times that never were/ We reminisce for an era that won't come back/ Because we weren't really on that track/ We took a different tack and created the universe as it never was/ We were all so cold that we turned blue/ We petted lions at the zoo/ We all lived by the Golden Rule as we walked ten miles through snow to school/ It was never us, always someone else who played the fool/ We were all raised in a log cabin or was it a grand mansion, never just a house/ There was a fierce rat in the tenement alley/ Never just a mouse/ We yearn for events that only happened in our mind's eye/ And when they don't return, we wonder why/ We wasted effort as we waited/ For pookas merely contemplated/ These chimeras that we chase always depart with great haste/ When momma kissed the wound did it really make it better/ Or was all we thought just a dead letter