Hopewell, New Jersey, May 2005

It was enough to make us weep, 

half a dozen veterans of the last great war

looking like fading away,

followed by the high school band,

booming bravely into adulthood.

Next a squad in Civil War uniform, 

harking back to the source of the holiday,

a fratricide that seems today

to have occurred in another country,

not just another century.

A retired Humvee 

with a small girl in back

wearing a grunt-style cap

and waving mechanically;  

vintage cars, 

big ones from a century ago

with wooden spokes

and other vestiges of their carriage genes,

still boxy ones from the '20s,

the streamlined '30s,

the fishtailed '50s,

a couple of Mustangs, an early Corvette;

then the fire engines, big and bigger,

like armor-plated rhinos,

our town’s brigade riding old fashioned red, 

others yellow, 

sage green from a well-heeled town nearby;

delegations of Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Brownies,

one scout troop with a five-piece band

trying like twenty-five;

a motorcycle club,

plenty of paunch and gray hair,

and, though some ponytails,

suburban angels rather than Hells. 

Finally a platoon of kids

all safely helmeted,

one tireless on a pogo stick 

others on scooters and bikes

and even a few on tricycles,

training for future wars.

© by Richard Greene.
Used with the author’s permission.