Les morts <br />C’est sous terre; <br />Ça n’en sort <br />Guère. <br />LAFORGUE <br /> <br /> <br />Our diaries squatted, toad-like, <br />On dark closet ledges. <br />Forget-me-not and thistle <br />Decalcomaned the pages. <br />But where, where are they now, <br />All the sad squalors <br />Of those between-wars parlors?— <br />Cut flowers; and the sunlight spilt like soda <br />On torporous rugs; the photo <br />Albums all outspread ... <br />The dead <br />Don’t get around much anymore. <br /> <br /> <br />There was an hour when daughters <br />Practiced arpeggios; <br />Their mothers, awkward and proud, <br />Would listen, smoothing their hose— <br />Sundays, half-past five! <br />Do you recall <br />How the sun used to loll, <br />Lazily, just beyond the roof, <br />Bloodshot and aloof? <br />We thought it would never set. <br />The dead don’t get <br />Around much anymore. <br /> <br /> <br />Eternity resembles <br />One long Sunday afternoon. <br />No traffic passes; the cigar smoke <br />Curls in a blue cocoon. <br />Children, have you nothing <br />For our cold sakes? <br />No tea? No little tea cakes? <br />Sometimes now the rains disturb <br />Even our remote suburb. <br />There’s a dampness underground. <br />The dead don’t get around <br />Much anymore.<br /><br />Donald Justice<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/nostalgia-and-complaint-of-the-grandparents/
