The dust waits

An acquaintance of mine shared the following yesterday:

*****

On September 11, 2002, I appeared on the Kean University radio program “Poets On Air” (http://www.kean.edu/~kuradio/segments.html ) to read a poem I wrote shortly after 9/11/01 for the families left behind. To commemorate the sixth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, I am sharing my work for those who may not have seen it …Never forget.

CB

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THE DUST WAITS
(to the families left behind)

The dust waits
shrouding sidewalks
anticipating footprints
that will never come

There are no cell phones in Heaven
sound-bite from a mother/daughter conversation
belonging in some far-off future
not a five year-old’s now

In a suddenly unfamiliar living room
a mother holds on
to a silent cell phone
that final connection
with a husband
whose death she just heard

Replaying in her mind
those last words of love
she listens to the decomposing static
until three hours later
the battery runs out

An interconnected network of empty beds
with permanent holes on one side
will remain

like the family photographs and wedding videos
capturing lives that will never be again
stared at so intently
in the hope of somehow pulling out
that one last piece of a soul
and touching it ever so briefly

until the warmth fades into memory
like the September 11 sun
before 8:46 AM