Generations

Long retired, many of the street's
original home owners whose children
have long since departed for their own
streets somewhere not too far from their
parents, remain in their homes happy to
live where memories flood the rooms
they shared with sons and daughters.
From time to time someone would sell
and in moved new families with young
children and the street became a fixed
yet fluid blend of young and old where
the elderly maintained friendly bonds
with those they know as neighbours
and friends and the new residents fail
to notice the presence among them of
the elderly, much less that of their peers.
The long established residents marvel
at the number of family separations being
racked up steadily leading to one-parent
families and the leftovers linking with
others who bring their own children
along to visit before eventually there is
a consolidation and one larger family
occupies the home reflecting a social
contract completely unfamiliar to one
half of the street's residents of the other
half's accommodation to life's exigencies.