Brooklyn 9/12
We roam
our Brooklyn streets
neighbors huddling
all of us ghosts
chat softly with our young son
gaping construction site
fat pigeon circling
while tiny papery fragments
fall from the bright
September sky
settling on our forearms
We blow at them
and wonder
fibers of a love note?
pencil shards?
a fingernail?
No choice
but to inhale
these ashes
the nuclear fallout
we’d only imagined
Radio voices tell us
this is not a war
between East and West
but we feel it so
the clash of cultures
our sorrowful bequest
How can we stay close
in this tsunami of distress?
At night our toddler
drifts off to sleep
nothing to do but
curl around him
our backs arched into
a bony heart
a cage
a brace
a frame
Nothing to say
no words
no lexicon
no name
for this disaster
this massacre
Leila saïda
my husband whispers in Arabic
good night
kisses our son’s doughy forehead
the quiet metronome
of his breathing
so soothing
then movement below
something shifting
land forms drifting
readjusting
leila saïda
a soft spoken promise
draws the dunes of Fire Island
toward those of El Jadida
to form a modern day Pangea
and we dream
of another radiant morning
the ground trembles
then surges skyward
tall towers of stone
this time arcing
bonding the continents
finally, we’re home
*
Sara Kandler is a passionate reader, writer and teacher of creative writing, journalism and memoir. A former journalist with an MS from Columbia University, she currently teaches English and French at the German International School of New York. Sara also has a BA in Comparative Literature from Brown University, and has taught Literary Journalism at Baruch College of the City University of New York. She has lived and taught in France, Morocco, and the United States. She now resides outside of New York City with her husband and three children.
An exquisitely evocative poem dealing with the aftermath of that horrific day and the hope for the future – a modern day Pangea indeed. Painfully beautiful… So many wonderful lines here: “the nuclear fallout
we’d only imagined” and “the clash of cultures our sorrowful bequest” Poet Sara Kandler gives us the gift of hope in this wonderful piece when she writes of “a soft spoken promise draw[ing] the dunes of Fire Island toward those of El Jadida.”
Thank you so much for these thoughtful comments, Jessi!
Such a powerful, tender, timely poem. I will read it again in the morning, Thank you Sara and ONE ART,
Thank you so much, Betsy! Your feedback means a lot to me. Sara
I had to look up Pangea and I’m so glad I did because it pulled it all together for me (no pun intended). I love the thought of the bodies coming together to form a continent and it reminded me of that time and how supportive people were of one another. The movement and shifting brought us closer together. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you so much for your beautiful comment!