Past Tense and Present

It explains so much
when you turn, tense,
and speak of the past:

roads were hard to choose,
everything so made of concrete,
hard to breathe, so difficult to read.

Of course, of course:

people were so quick to declaim
against, hard to see, so inflexible,
everyone is too quick.

That was the past:

you admit it, shoulders and mouth
tense, and I will add, turning away,
what is the present.

What is … :
oh, I am so quick.