fifteen years on

I wonder what you make of it,

our mourning and our melancholy,

hushed and solemn voices

speaking of airplanes and of towers,

of burning and of falling.

words you know, but not together–

how could you? you are only three.

it has been so recently

that words have come

under your control at all,

slippery as fish in your eager hands,

every utterance awash

in meaning you don’t fully grasp.

so fragile still, and tenuous,

is the link between a thing and its word,

it almost seems that talk like this

could drown what hope you have

of someday understanding.

I’ll tell you:

I was twenty-four years old that day.

words were my breath

in a sea of uncertainty;

I was never so sure of things

and their words

as I was at twenty-four.

but then

airplanes burned and towers fell

and fifteen years on

I still have trouble understanding

how those words can go together.

poem (c) 2016 D. Ohlandt

please only reprint in entirety and with credit given

#40for40