When Everyone Was Still Alive

I'm already behind on my poems.   Received word that my cousin Jack Higgins had died up in Middlebury Vermont.  Yesterday I drove as far as Albany, spent the night with our sisters here,
and will proceed up to Middlebury today.   So glad I went to visit these cousins two years ago, while Jack was still alive.

That last phrase led me to this third poem/draft:

When everyone was still alive

I look at the family photo from 1972

When everyone was still alive

Three generations at the table

Then, year by year, they disappear,

One after another.

Three this year

Within a few months.

I drive down Price Street in West Chester

And remember Lib and Ed

Molly and Johnny, Gummy and Vic

Ernie and Mary, Dot and Jeff

And my parents

When everyone was still alive,

And all of these are disappeared now

As I drive down Price Street.

I go to Mass at Saint Agnes

And even Dr.Roberts, father of my

Grade school friend and

Perennial deacon

Has disappeared.

I sit in the pew

My family favored

And look around

At a church full of

Young families

And strangers.

I weep for all I did not ask,

For all I did not notice

When everyone was still alive.