Below is something I found tonight on an older computer I still have which was really my primary computer during the first few years of college. Its a poem that I wrote on 9/11, literally on the morning of the attack. I turned it in for an incidental assignment shortly after I wrote it and the professor gave me a good mark on it, but also told me not to share it with anyone because it was simply too soon to make some of the comments that the poem makes.
I thought it was lost and forgot that it had been saved on my laptop, so when I found it, I was actually very happy. I've reread it several times now because I think its probably the most honest thing I've ever written and, for all its melodrama, I'm nonetheless very proud of it. I did and still do agree with the professor though. I think still today it is too soon to say some of the things that it says, but at the same time I find it jarring in a way that maybe is good and maybe is just as applicable today as it was 6 years ago.
I hope you read this and think honestly on it for a few minutes of your day. The title is a new addition. It had never been titled until now but I think that this is really, with the perspective of a few years now, an appropriate title. Comments in the TalkBack please. That's all.
Lost
Lady Liberty,
what is that running down your once chaste inner thigh?
Who tattered your gown and stole your torch,
violated you, left you cold,
sweaty, ripped and bloodied,
for passers-by to point
their fingers, shake their heads,
call you a "cautionary tale."
The day dawned a bloody sunrise,
but don't let this seed of terror
blossom from within your womb,
to stagnate and sour your waters.
Dash it from your ever virgin body,
and raise high again;
stand now with more open eyes
hued in all the American colors,
and most of all,
let Freedom ring.
2 comments:
That was very powerful.
While reading it, I pictured myself that day - standing on the outside deck in NC - watching the military helicopters leave Camp Lejuene.
evil seed in the womb - stagnant waters....excellent expression.
I guess we know how it feels to watch the world turn still - same as our grandparents tell us of the Pearl Harbor days.
Very well done. You should be very proud of this.
I agree with Tracy...it really hit home and stirred up those feelings of 6 years ago. Thats neat that you found it again after all this time, its fun to go back and read old things written and relive those emotions.
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