The Loss of History

Fred Gordon

You can find the dates,

The births, the marriages, the deaths,

The milestones of a family’s history.

But the heart of it, the characters,

They fade from memory, slowly,

Water rippling over rock,

Diminishing as the stories get washed away:

He sold pots and pans to the Indians in Montana.

(You gotta be kidding me!)

She played piano by ear.

Even if she’d never heard the tune,

You hummed it, she played it on the spot.

He took out his false teeth at the Thanksgiving table.

(He got some laughs, it became a holiday ritual.)

He walked the railroad tracks looking for

Piles of scrap at the back of the building

And came, suit and tie, around the front the next day.

She gave away her diamond ring to her manicurist.

When he returned from Vegas,

He’d always pass out silver dollars.

(He was a sport, a ladies’ man and a gambling man.)

She painted beautiful little storks on bathroom mirrors.

(She lived dirt-poor but died rich.)

He had his nose broken in his only Golden Gloves fight.

He spoke little English, but he always said,

Let me feel the muscle, keed, and, Hoo, boy!

You can find the dates.

The stories, one by one, year by year,

With no one who remembers,

Disappear.