Boyertown PA
7-25-2026 4:19am

The Bloomers – Post Pedestal

Editor's note:  Writers were asked to respond to the theme of "service' as part of Studio B Art Gallery's "In Service" project sponsored by a grant from the Berks County Community Foundation.  

by Phil Repko*

We pedestal millennials who weathered two World Wars,
Endured a scourge of maladies – perennials - and all
The obstacles that scarred and scraped a century before.

But what of those they raised and reared?
We hear no paeans
Ringing clear and elevating to the moon
The ones
Who came of age more soon.
The progeny before the Boom –
Whose youth was rationed, more than truth.

These children grew in shadows where
Their parents could not breathe relief,
And so they clenched onto belief.
The early bloomers followed suit
More pressed and cleaned by folks who’d
Seen how close the end of Freedom seemed.

Their parents rationed not by choice,
So they maintained a frugal face – renewed, repaired -
Saw sin in waste; their holy, patriotic voice sang
Sacred hymns and anthems clear.

The age they spanned saw Want reduced,
And Fear stood down and hung its head.
Their time seduced with promises,
Advice grown where the experts said
New rules prevail. God is not dead,
Though he lurks in the overgrowth
Of confidence and recklessness.

This generation in between –
The greatest and a nation bent
On reshaping the Rights and wrongs –
While singing marching protest songs,
Themselves gave birth to rebelled Youth
Who thought they knew a truer course,
Their truth compelled a single arc
Toward Justice, riding coattails draped
On cherished tenets – flush with Faith -
In concert with the Founding traits
Where We the People made their mark.

Competing Truths the Bloomers bore;
Make Love not War seemed foreign here,
This land where Freedom meant respect
For patriots alive and dead.
They held onto their parents’ creed,
But saw their offspring fight and thrive
With other icons by their side,
And blessed and loved their children. Pride
In country really wavered less
Than certainty that truth regressed if all
Of us were merely partly free.

This was the halter worn by those
Who dressed in Hand-me-Downs and chose
To honor Pasts while looking up. They drank a
Sweet and bitter cup, where fortitude conferred a crown.

One brother walked a line uprose, with taut suspension,
Holding those most bitter rivals – faith and fear –
That Nietzsche warned would disappear in favor
Of a hardship stirred with doubt and tension un-deferred.

His sister kept a constitution, daily Mass. No evolution
Swayed her sure and constant trust; Fidelity
And dust-to-dust stayed close at heart. The spinning globe
In time confirmed and clearly showed, her precious part
Was played with love and endless grit flush from above.
Yes, faith and doubt held hands in it.

We say good bye with gratitude to all as they
Proceed with pride along the way we all must ride.
We saw through them, Beatitudes most nourished
By the attitudes that place the graces side-by-side
With some kind of resiliency, we hope that we
Will live to see, grow up again in progeny.

And now, we smile through our tears. Find joys
In all the fretful years, the noise that seemed
Just grinding gears, we now can hear for what it was –
An unrelenting wave of love to light the way and render clear:
Each will be judged – by how he lives and what he does.

They called them Silent at the time, since shadows cast
By life sublime, in post-war meadows paved with mulch
Made passage softer to the touch. Yet they made such
An imprint on, the culture then, in art and song

That we can hear them through today – They were
The screams ol’ Blue-Eyes made his schoolgirl crushes
Render out. Like Elvis’ hips and twists and shouts
That came a little later on.

Oh, there was nothing silent then, and still not
Now, for as they pass, the world they made
Seems soon to crash because their guidance
Has moved on. Seems just a flash. We’ll sing along
And cross our fingers, simply saying hope
Malingers- something much more lasting, staying.
The lesson learned, but not removed
So far that we betray our past, and those who made
Us. What must last is everything they sacrificed
To scale the Top. Oh, Bless them. Bless them.
Make the price worth every drop. That will suffice.

 * Phil Repko is a career educator in the PA public school system who has been writing for fun and no profit since he was a teenager. Phil lives with his wife Julie in Gilbertsville and is the father of three outstanding children, two of whom are also poets and writers. He vacillates between poetry and prose, as the spirit beckons, and has published two boosk of poetry “Pieces of April” and “Homestretch,” both available on Amazon.

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