Falling silent eternally
their numbers grow
as you grow old.
Father, mother
uncles and aunts,
all that generation
disappear to become
thinner than the air
that you still breathe.
Then your friends
and colleagues
will drop away
one by one to join
this sorry legion.
Lifeless, they inhabit
no kingdom come
these phantoms that
flicker in your mind
from time to time
to be extinguished
forever and ever
when you expire.
