Poem - High School Reunion: 25 Years

Here is something I wrote after the HCHS 25-Year Reunion.

HIGH SCHOOL REUNION: 25 YEARS

Chatting with cocktails, dressed well, some
sequins, everyone looks confident,
prosperous, a bunch of forty-three-year-olds,
surprising numbers in shapes of old, but faces
better now in person than in pictures.

One may notice swords in chests, several sizes,
fixtures protruding through clothes,
some decorated with scarves and ribbons,
or worn like military medals, a condition to
make a speaker's voice quieter, smile
warmer, judgment kinder than of old.

We've made it halfway, most of us.

Men and women, tongue-tied, clownish, spiteful
as students, now expansive, generous,
naming children, some tiny, one grandchild, businesses,
travels, adventures, being there when the wall
came down. Some are back to church.

It has been good, most of it. It has been
a good fight. We are halfway through.
We are not as surprised or offended by life
as at twenty or thirty. We do not
complain. We briefly do the Bristol Stomp.