9-11

“9/11” I have seen the Sword of Anguish As it seared its blinding wrath across the faces of millions. I have tasted the salt of their tears Released in painful droplets of anger and fear. I have watched the father, stooped and broken As he speaks of the deeds of a heroic son. Ached for the void that engulfs the husband As he listens to the frightened sobs Of the wife who knows she is lost. I have peered out through the wide eyed innocence Of a child - hopeful, confused, afraid, Then gone. I have felt the fatigue of the broad-shouldered saviors Who toil in disbelief while numbing themselves to the pain. I tell myself: “*It is, too, much.” - That the price of survival is, too, costly to pay. I ask the question: “Why?” - In the morning when I face the day; Upon the return to home - when your presence is missed; In the middle of the night when I wake - reaching, reaching, reaching. Grief is physical to me now - A gnawing volcanic mass that rises from the pit of my stomach And hurls my suffering up and out of me in so many screaming voices. “Time will heal,” I tell myself - Smoothing over the scars until they are merely A distant reminder of what you meant to my life. But I will remember - Always…in small agonizing sobs That I hide in that private part of me - And you will be with me Again, And again, And again….. Jan Pearce In Commemoration of 9/11