Jami Patterson Poet Other

Notes About The Poem

The Fracturing part 2

(The Days That Followed)

The dust began to settle, but the silence didn't lift, The skies were clear and empty, a strange and sudden shift. But then the colors started, a bloom against the gray, As we woke up to the morning of the distinct "next day." Do you remember how the porches changed, the windows and the cars? A sudden sea of stripes, a sudden field of stars.

It wasn't ordered from above, no mandate or decree, It rippled out from house to house, from sea to shining sea. The tattered cloth from attics, the stickers on the glass, The small lapels on heavy coats watching the seasons pass. We signaled to each other, a code we understood: I am here, and you are here, and standing here is good.

Then came the twilight gatherings, the parks and village squares, The Fracturing of darkness with the light of silent prayers. Do you recall the paper cups, the wax upon the hand? A million tiny flickers lit the contours of the land. We stood on high school football fields and city capital steps, We stood in quiet driveways, taking measured, deeply breaths.

The fracture broke the frantic pace, the rushing and the race, And left a gentle patience in the open, wounded space. We looked strictly at the pavement, then we looked up at the eyes, And found a kindness waiting there, a comforting surprise. The way we held the doors a bit, the way we let folks in, The way that grief had peeled away the thickness of our skin.

We healed by being near, by simply standing close, The remedy for terror was the thing we needed most. For in the days that followed, when the world felt fragile/new, The Fracturing revealed the bond that held us—me and you. The candle burns down to the wick, the flags eventually fade, But never lose the memory of the promise that we made.

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