It started off blue
September sky, nothing wrong
Familiar Tuesday.

Good souls unaware
One hundred two minutes pass
Plans now turned to dust.

Screams become silence
The living calling loved ones
Getting kids from school.

Speeches, tributes, songs
Long lines for blood, rescue dogs
Churches sending socks.

The phones keep ringing
Offers of help unending
Put “helpless” on hold.

Maintain your resolve
Keep donating blood, money
The Longest War starts.

Numbness marks our days
We stumble forward, trying
Grasping hands in hope.

Three, four years go by
Too many flag-draped coffins
Not enough closure.

That’s how it would be
(Though we couldn’t see it then)
For sixteen more years.

We keep on going
Electing and protesting
Taking kids to school.

Voices get louder
Drown out calls for unity
And still some will hope.

Glimmers of promise
Lace our days, hold off despair
Weddings, reunions.

We keep waking up
We try on a new “normal”
And it seems to fit.

Here, deep in our hearts
A steady persistent truth
We want to go on.

Slog through the Virus
Needless preventable deaths
A year without hugs.

What we couldn’t see
Twenty years ago, is clear
Painfully clear now.

If we’re to move on
We must be willing to heal
To forgive. To love.

In our tired hands
The promise of what’s to be
The next twenty years…