Great Joy and Small Sadness



By Elizabeth Franko



Great Joy

You are here, in my bed, tonight.

The web of friends has grown tighter.

I can worry, again, about things like crowded trains and grocery bills.

A sunset blazed pink and orange along the New Jersey sky.

So many stories of miracles.

Its a new day.


Small Sadness

The home-made MISSING signs, with pictures of once happy people(height, weight and their floor in the World Trade Towers), now gone forever.

The children with lemonade stands in Brooklyn, gathering money for our dead firemen.

Sounds, always, overhead of fighter jets, circling my City.

TV shows about germ warfare and forces of terror in the hands of the extreme.

The crashing of the stock market, the layoffs, the lower Manhattan resteraunts with rotting food in their kitchens.

Little school children learning about War and talking about Osama Bin Laden.

Sirens, firetrucks, smoke and broken concrete make me skiddish and dreadful.

I catch myself frowning more often.

The news-reports with that fiery explosion playing again and again.

Body parts found blocks away from 'ground zero'.

The smoke that still rises over Manhattan, and the hole in the skyline.

The lump in my heart where peace once lived.

Its a new day.


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