The New World

On September 11th we needed to say goodbye.
Our phones are mobile now
So we did. And somewhere
In that bright blue sky
Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings
Found every one of us.

We needed to say goodbye to innocence;
Goodbye to an innocence
We did not know we possessed
Until it was gone.

There is no longer anything to hold onto.
We are letting go.
The world of silk and linen
The world of wet hair and hot skin
Is drifting into memory, into time.
We are left with our selves,
With each other.

That night, we listened to the Beatles
And watched Sam Waterston and Robert Redford
In The Great Gatsby.
A blue pool under a hot, summer-ending sun.
“Speaking words of wisdom. Let It Be.“

We did not know it was behind us
Until it was.

You can’t repeat the past.
It is gone.
We are left to dream our new world.
We are left with our dreams
And the new world.

© David Biddle, September 12, 2001