Charleston Dancer

You were always so elegant

Moving in ways

That I could barely comprehend

That I could never hope to replicate

Always seeming to understand what movement

Meant what to who

I never knew the code

Knowing of the structures

Society and the latest dances

For my feet would never learn the steps

You made bowling seem like ballet

Conversation a form of art

You made banter seem like diplomacy

An actor always knows their part

The world you knew is gone now

Echoes now only remain

The song slowed ended

With the last fading refrain.

Mills Brothers no longer on the radio

A time I never knew

Murrow no longer on the radio

The war is finally through

Gene G. McLaughlin 2013