It was a long way she trod from
second one till a hundred past.
Paris bombed!
The wars did come and go.
From the windowsill, she sewed rag to rag
and watched them all. She tied her
things up in boxes stacked a century ago,
mended clothes pressed flat in a Norman cupboard.
She died in a modern hospital room
that resembled nothing the year she was born,
the early century – 1908.
She was just a child when all those boys died.
And then she bore her own in the second war.
Paris liberated!
Flags waved, firecrackers burned.
Years later, they fought.
My father left.
For decades, she was old.
We sat her at a table once a year
and smiled when she was gone.
She smelled like musty things.
How little we notice until they die,
then we try on their heavy shoes,
we unpack their boxes, flip
scalloped pictures, yellow and gray.
We touch their things as if
we knew how to cradle a hungry child
and yearn the taste of milk.
How little we build from souvenirs,
how little we cared to ask when
she sat old by the windowsill.
Life is long – but the same length for all,
the same second one till years gone past.
And the pain it takes to remember,
we soon forget.
She lived to a hundred and three,
and we shall soon forget.
A Southward Tide 