They sit, week on week,
year on year, solitary matriarchs
Hair of silver, grey, white, spun gold
Stoic women, widows, stately clothed
coiffed, regal bearing, sitting erect,
sitting in their assigned seats
in familiar pews, sharing the later years
the platinum years of their collective lives
in the church they helped form, the place
they and their husbands built,
men who fought in Europe, in
the Pacific. Men who won victory
over Adolf and the Emperor
who rebuilt a nation, after Depression
and sacrifice, stalwart Yankees,
examples to us all, week on week
in the sanctuary, in fellowship
with them and our God
(Poem by Raymond A. Foss)