Lingering Still poem.

LINGERING STILL

Mary Frances is lingering quiet and still.
Billie’s reclusive and sad.
Olga, they say, is seriously ill.
and Mama is worse than bad.

Darlene grieves her husband’s death,
but faith glows in her demeanor.
Caroline left many years ago
but I still hear her gift as a singer.

Fannie Ella had a heart of gold
and energy for all undertakings.
Maude left us several years ago,
a widow so young, forsaken.

Florence forgot who she was and where.
and her daughter was just a stranger.
Bennie Joe is far away from her home.
Her past is becoming grayer.

The glamour girls of the forties and fifties.
Fashion and parties and clubs.
Girl-talk and babies coming in droves
Future boomers, their darlings, their loves.

But the boomers sometimes didn’t fit the bill.
They bypassed bridge and babies.
The children of the glamour girls
forever different and labeled.

The coffee was hot and steam softened light.
I smell cigarettes, and hear chatter.
I cry for a past that has vanished so fast
Why, now, does it seem to matter?

Janet Brice Parker, 2004