Kumbaya

One day the towers were standing, the next day they
weren't. I have no memory of the pillars of smoke, the
dust-clouds of salt-sweat as thousands wound their
way down endless stairwells. A helicopter parent, my

mother was determined to shield her children from
what had transpired. I didn't learn about the terrorist
attack until many years later, unfashionably late to the
party of red-eyes and jingoism and dingleberries hang-

ing from bayonets and powdered wigs, of the tanks
and camo prints and trillions poured into the gopher
burrows to poison the pests we'd bred ourselves, back
in the eighties to fight thems Red Commies. I was busy

watching Disney movies and Winx Club, and dressing
up like a princess when my fraught schedule of school
and social workers allowed it. My third social worker
gave me a bird puppet named Peebird the Second,

after the original Peebird who was canary-colored.
Peebird 2 was blue, and I thought he was named after
the vegetable for years, the wordplay lost on me. But
my mind was on the Titanic, reading voraciously about

that glittering woebegone liner. The world could go
on tearing itself apart without me, and it would. And
it does still. We started a war that lasted over twenty
years. We make our beds then refuse to lie in them.

And how is Afghanistan looking, now that American
Freedom has left its mark on the face of their cities?
Come by here, Lord, someone is crying. Come by here,
Lord, someone is praying in mighty need, O Lord.

　　　　　　　　　　 * * *

On the one-year anniversary, my elementary school's
faculty planted a tree on its grounds, and had every
student stand in a giant circle around it. Dutifully we
held hands and danced a hora, singing Kumbaya,

My Lord and Shalom Haverim, songs we had recently
been taught in music class. I, who was nine-and-a-half
then and had had only a vague understanding of what
we were honoring, thought the whole idea was stupid.

Sure, it was sad that some people had died, but how
would planting a tree and singing songs bring them
back? I muttered as much to my best friend, whom I'd
made sure to stand beside in the circle. Our teachers

stood solemnly, all tearing up at the sight of us young-
sters singing and dancing and saving the Earth with
our youthful optimism. O Lord, come by here, some-
one is singing your song. O lord, come by here. Christ.



---Published by Last Leaves Magazine, Issue #8, May 2024 (pg. 108): https://www.lastleavesmag.com/_files/ugd/dccfc8_38f316ba0fca47d0a33b2a1f73fe26d6...
---posted here Dec. 20, 2024