AS THE SONG GOES

I look at the few photos
Of my mother’s older sister
Jessie who died at age 7
Of diphtheria, departed early
For a flight to Heaven.

I think of the loss
These many decades gone
And all those who felt that loss,
Now all those also gone.
The lacy dress my mother wore
In one photo with Jessie
Is still neatly folded in a plastic bag
In the box of family mementos,
Yellow now instead of white
But aging better than
The little girl who wore it,
Better than any of us who came after.

That whole time and place
Now utterly gone and all the people in it
Circa 1910 or 1915
And yet some of us live now
As proof it did indeed all once exist
And led to this for us, to our lives
Also so soon to pass.

Such a short, short time to be here,
Such a long time to be gone,
As the good old Grateful Dead used to sing.


(c) 2009, Bob Loomis