(Falling…
The sky is falling…)

I awoke in a surreal manner, this morning,
trying to remain in a dream. In this dream,
I was collecting, and packing away, to take with me,
material memories from an abandoned house not my own.
Small items, of no importance or worth, really, including
a fork left alone in a drawer, a tattered origami crane, and,
oddly, repair scraps from a beautiful organ, still present,
but decrepit. I felt the house fading, disturbed I couldn’t finish
my dream mission, and lay there a few minutes, then I got up.

(Dying…
The world is dying…)

My routine was pretty much the same, it being
a school morning, as it was five years ago. I noticed
my oldest daughter was awake, by the light under her door;
she’s in High School, now, sets her own alarm. I checked
the computer quick, so she could have some time on it, started
the coffee brewing, and went to open the front door,
before I realized what day was dawning beneath the gray
popcorn clouds tinged underneath with pink. I stood in the chill
of cool autumn breezes in the metal-screened doorway, chilled
in my mind. I thought how breathtaking morning looked, outside,
and how I felt glad to be alive.

(Jumping…
I feel like jumping…)

There wasn’t much time to collapse, personally,
like I had five years ago. Time seemed cruelly oblivious
to the present of past’s agony, never slowing in respect
for human life and death. I had to get my daughter to early
band practice, and then the younger up for her shower, before
I could watch the Sept. 11 coverage on TV. She commented,
when she came out and saw the Two Towers burning, she
remembered that, and me crying. She was six, in first grade.
I cried for five days, literally, before I could stop.

(Living…
We go on living…)

After getting her to school, sixth grade, now,
I watched the ceremonies, re-lived the agony the past produced,
cried a while for humanity’s, and my, inter-definable loss, ached
for the victims, and the survivors. I feel like both, and that
makes me angry, angry the ‘change’ the world went through
came from violence and hatred, and the fact I’m not who
I used to be, will never be, again. The sky’s still falling,
for me, but, I see hope for my children through my children.
And, in the end, that’s what’s important to our Now. The
carefully collected memories of pasts which will join to mold
a better living future.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 9/11/06