Yvonne Gilmore's Cross Has Faded

The calligraphy is gone.
Purple plastic flowers bleached white
Lie in a circle, trampled
Around the still standing cross.
The glory of memory,
Efforts to commemorate
Loss of a life the living

Wanted back, never to lose,
Whatever stories were told
About that cross and that life,
Including one's own grim poem,
Disintegrate as they change.
What is new under the sun,
Forever, is what is gone.