A Hundred Years Later

​The tall gravestone, the one on the far left,
that old chap never saw the Grand Canyon,
never dipped his toe in the Pacific Ocean,
he supported his family every day of adulthood.

Just to the right, her, she saw the world,
Paris, Tel Aviv, Sydney, Barcelona, Rio,
spent her years in a truly jetset fashion,
dated but never married, never anyone's mom.

Just in front of those, a couple is buried
together, though they died two years apart,
she didn't finish her last thousand-piece jigsaw,
though it did keep her grief away, for a while.

Sights seen and unseen, tasks completed or not,
ways lived, means earned, goals met or forgotten,
friend of the battle-worn or conscientious objector,
these matter to no one a hundred years later.

If it weren't for my great-great-grandfather,
I wouldn't be here, or perhaps, I wouldn't be me,
but I never cared a wit about his dreams
and his day-to-day scrambles to attain them.

A hundred years from now, my own ancestors
will go about their own struggles and successes,
I can make reparations to leave them a legacy,
still, my days here and now will matter to no one. 

Published in "The Dilettante's Garden" and"Eloquence"
by Jack Huber- All rights reserved

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