Lucille’s about ready to leave

She’d be a hundred next month but won’t see it.
Aides will miss her sense of humor on the East wing;
something to look forward to after
bathing and dressing grumpy Ed in 106 each day.
She lightened up the daily routine.
Such great spirit in that tiny wren’s body,
it didn’t take much conversation to know
she was one sharp lady.

In today’s world she would probably
have been CEO instead of secretary
at the beck and call of the top dogs for
thirty eight years at E-Ward Iron Works
and a bunch before that at Northwestern.
Forty some years since she retired and she could still
rattle off company history and analyze
the bad business decisions she wouldn’t have made.

There had been a couple of years of romance
and tender moments during the Depression
trying to save up enough to get married.
Then came the lonely dark war years
and letter writing and prayers
before the call came one day from his family.
She didn’t put a gold star in her window –
those were for mothers or widows.

Barbara Larsen has a double mission: to become the best poet she can become and to spread the love of poetry far and wide. She believes that it and the other arts can restore reason and compassion in our mixed up world. Her latest book is Finding Tongues in Trees.