The Silent Generation, b. 1925–1945

They were born into war, born into work.
There was a country to build. They built it.

Men fastened helmets and flipped down visors.
Street lamps flickered. A great engine roared.

Sometimes the men paused, leaned against buildings.
Their thoughts were rationed into smoke breaks.

At home a trash bin rumbled to the curb;
they walked their dogs in the drizzle and mist.

The toys bloomed like shrapnel over the lawn:
a child’s, a grandchild’s, then finally none.

The flux of years flares the filler rod down.
The work was a weld, the weld was a dream;

the dream unnamable in the machine,
like a lone violin—distant and hushed,

but still articulate; still wandering,
lost in the thrumming of the engine’s roar.