Last week in the United States we commemorated the 24th anniversary of the day that changed our country forever. This is one of the moments in life where you will never forget where you were when you heard the news. While watching the towers fall, or the planes crashing into the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania field, you knew that precious lives were lost and those lives that remained here on Earth were forever changed.
I remember where I was. I was sitting in traffic on a crisp, clear Tuesday morning while taking my car into the shop for repair. My boyfriend was in front of me, escorting me to the car dealership so we could leave my car there and go about our day on a rare day off together. I recall the radio station breaking in at 8:46 am EST during a song to report the news of the first plane hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Shortly after, the news of the second plane was broadcast, hitting the South Tower at 9:03 am EST. My boyfriend called me from the car ahead to see if I had heard the breaking news, and in my innocence and desire to believe that nothing like this could possibly be happening in our country, I stated “What a coincidence”. He responded back “No…we are under attack.” By the time we got to the dealership, every television had the news coverage on and we watched, stunned and silent, as eventually the towers fell, the Pentagon was destroyed, and United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Do you recall where you were and how you were feeling? Were you confused, as I was at first, eventually settling into a state of disbelief? Did you know immediately we were under attack? Do you remember how you felt when the towers fell? My boyfriend, a fire fighter at the time, felt the burden of all 343 firefighters lost on that day.
This poem was written shortly after that event and it was found in a binder of poems that I had forgotten about and rediscovered during the Covid lockdown of 2020 (another event the world will never forget!) I included it in my first book of very young poems called “Walk Through a Field of Flowers” (https://thepracticalpoet.com/books/).
The quick cadence of this poem hopes to capture the ever changing emotions, confusion, and despair of that time. May we never forget.
09/11
When seconds count and moments matter
Life can change before your eyes.
Hearts will break and souls will shatter
And yet we do not realize
That life is short, it can be over
With neither blink nor second glance.
No one holds a four leaf clover
In this daily game of chance.
Cries of anger, cries of fear,
Drowning quickly in our grief.
Loneliness beyond repair
Searching blindly for relief.
Yet on and on our lives revolve;
Another dollar, another day.
Another life left in despair,
Another soul taken away.
Another loved one, standing, staring,
Soul shattered, teary eyed.
Bruised and battered, heart strings tearing;
Anguish overflows inside.
-K.A. Bloch-
