Kumbaya

A poem about my childhood recollections of 9/11, and the overzealous response of the US to it.

Kumbaya

 

One day the towers were standing, the next day they

weren't. I have no memory of the pillars of smoke, the

dust-clouds of salt-sweat as thousands wound their

way down endless stairwells. A helicopter parent, my

 

mother was determined to shield her children from

what had transpired. I didn't learn about the terrorist

attack until many years later, unfashionably late to the

party of red-eyes and jingoism and dingleberries hang-

 

ing from bayonets and powdered wigs, of the tanks

and camo prints and trillions poured into the gopher

burrows to poison the pests we'd bred ourselves, back

in the eighties to fight thems Red Commies. I was busy

 

watching Disney movies and Winx Club, and dressing

up like a princess when my fraught schedule of school

and social workers allowed it. My third social worker

gave me a bird puppet named Peebird the Second,

 

after the original Peebird who was canary-colored.

Peebird 2 was blue, and I thought he was named after

the vegetable for years, the wordplay lost on me. But

my mind was on the Titanic, reading voraciously about

 

that glittering woebegone liner. The world could go

on tearing itself apart without me, and it would. And

it does still. We started a war that lasted over twenty

years. We make our beds then refuse to lie in them.

 

And how is Afghanistan looking, now that American

Freedom has left its mark on the face of their cities?

Come by here, Lord, someone is crying. Come by here,

Lord, someone is praying in mighty need, O Lord.

 

　　　　　　　　　　 * * *

 

On the one-year anniversary, my elementary school's

faculty planted a tree on its grounds, and had every

student stand in a giant circle around it. Dutifully we

held hands and danced a hora, singing Kumbaya,

 

My Lord and Shalom Haverim, songs we had recently

been taught in music class. I, who was nine-and-a-half

then and had had only a vague understanding of what

we were honoring, thought the whole idea was stupid.

 

Sure, it was sad that some people had died, but how

would planting a tree and singing songs bring them

back? I muttered as much to my best friend, whom I'd

made sure to stand beside in the circle. Our teachers

 

stood solemnly, all tearing up at the sight of us young-

sters singing and dancing and saving the Earth with

our youthful optimism. O Lord, come by here, some-

one is singing your song. O lord, come by here. Christ.

Author's Note

Published in Last Leaves Magazine, Issue #8 (pg. 92), May 2024
https://www.lastleavesmag.com/_files/ugd/dccfc8_38f316ba0fca47d0a33b2a1f73fe26d6.pdf