Laura's poem looks back on a generation raised to expect greatness. The speaker remembers being told that "great things will happen to us," and how those hopes grew bigger and wilder with age, yet always stayed just out of reach. Doubt creeps in, and the dreams start to look like plants that might die in the "winter of reality."
The mood is wistful and a little bitter. The phrase "wasted generation" and the image of cubs raised in the wilderness suggest talented people left unprepared by promises that never came true. The speaker seems to blame the adults who made those promises as much as the dreams themselves.
The final lines turn the poem around. The generation faded away because it never noticed that the "spectacular now," the ordinary present, was already extraordinary. The ending feels quietly regretful, as if the lesson arrived too late.