Nostalgia And Complaint Of The Grandparents

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Les morts
C’est sous terre;
  Ça n’en sort
Guère.
  LAFORGUE


  Our diaries squatted, toad-like,
  On dark closet ledges.
  Forget-me-not and thistle
  Decalcomaned the pages.
  But where, where are they now,
  All the sad squalors
  Of those between-wars parlors?—
Cut flowers; and the sunlight spilt like soda
  On torporous rugs; the photo
  Albums all outspread ...
  The dead
Don’t get around much anymore.


  There was an hour when daughters
  Practiced arpeggios;
  Their mothers, awkward and proud,
  Would listen, smoothing their hose—
  Sundays, half-past five!
  Do you recall
  How the sun used to loll,
Lazily, just beyond the roof,
  Bloodshot and aloof?
  We thought it would never set.
  The dead don’t get
  Around much anymore.


  Eternity resembles
  One long Sunday afternoon.
  No traffic passes; the cigar smoke
  Curls in a blue cocoon.
  Children, have you nothing
  For our cold sakes?
  No tea? No little tea cakes?
Sometimes now the rains disturb
  Even our remote suburb.
  There’s a dampness underground.
  The dead don’t get around
  Much anymore.

© Donald Justice