The final re-union will be here soon enough;
all those long tables set
with candelabra and gleaming plates.
The chairs empty; silent and untended.

No more cold Remembrance Day parades
in gray November rain,
with mournful bugles calling across lowered flags
for those now beyond the common sight……

beyond the heart-clenching reach
of “Action Stations” alarms;
the sea ghosts have slipped their anchor chains,
dissolving down channel
into the mists of final peace.

Discarded lies the paraphernalia of war,
the rituals; the anniversaries afterwards
dwindle into obscurity and neglect
with the passing of the last, lonely souls.