Reaching Out

Searching Faces

Visiting the old folks
I strain forward in my seat,
trying to coax from them
stories of who they are,
where they’ve lived,
what they’re proud of.
Sadly, and too often,
pictures on the night stand
tell the only tale I’ll hear:
him in his uniform,
her in her wedding gown.
Sometimes, the best that I can do
is whisper in an ear,
“You’re beautiful,”
or pat a shoulder saying,
“I’m so proud to know you.”
Later, in the paper, I may read
of an extraordinary life
I never got to know.

Loss of memory, loss of self,
are barriers greater than time.

This bi-weekly prompt for Christine's poetry party is a graceful picture from her family album. Maybe I'll try again sometime to make a poem from it, but what comes to me today is the difficulty of reaching out to connect with others, not only across time. What I've written is more prose than poetry, but you can try your hand at it at
Invitation to Poetry