Our Family History

Written after the Age Concern Revue

GOLDEN

Wheel chairs, walking sticks, hardly a face unglassed;

Bobbing white heads in lively greetings;

Halting steps impatient of disadvantage;

Age aggregate must be hundreds of years.

Rattling cups of tea in risky old hands,

We are out in force today.

In the foyer music begins; music for interval.

A brass group from the school orchestra.

Somewhere a steady beat of percussion.

Serious formal faces, eyes gravely intent on the music.

Music for the elderly, sweet sounds of Kern, Gershwin

And Glen Miller the darling lost one.

In our day we danced to all these.

(Given the chance we would dance today)

The sound syrups over me, golden.

To my exasperation I am caught unawares

By tears, stinging, uninvited.

Golden lads and girls, your music was once ours,

Shakespeare got it right, exactly

Marguerite Nancy Story

A poem written after an Age Concern Revue

Linked to Marguerite Nancy Story

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