Still fallen

I have been writing poetry since I was in kindergarten. For all my life, it has been the way I express my feelings and experiences on the most elemental level. The monday after 9/11, my husband and I and our two daughters attended a memorial service held at Veteran's Park in Edgewater, NJ, across the Hudson from upper Manhattan.

My husband is a Buddhist, and his sect had spent that summer building a Peace garden at the water's edge in the park. We stood there, at sunset, with thousands of others, all of us neighbors, each holding a candle. At seven PM, a few words were said, and we all sang "God Bless America". And each of us, one by one, walked to the star-shaped flagpole's concrete base, and left our candles there. When I got home that night, I started writing. A few weeks later, I read an account in the Record, our local newspaper, about the family of one young man that included his mother's comments about how they were dealing with the fact that his remains were not found. She spoke of finding peace as she watched the smoke from the fires after the tower fell drift into that beautiful blue sky downriver over the Statue of Liberty and the river. It was like watching her son go to heaven. I had the same feeling the night that I stood at the vigil.

(The poem is copyright 2001-2006 Evelyn McHugh. Not to be reproduced or copied without permission)

still
fallen

. . .

What is that?

I watched
Watched what but did not understand
Did not want to understand
Pristine heavens, a thin drift trailing off
Trailing off marred
The eye wanted to fill in the hole
That should not be there

And another

What is that

Quickly at the same time
And understanding
In some part of my thoughts
But not my eyes
Understanding
Flecks of white
Men had taken their jackets off
Since at the office things were
Now casually open
The outline like in a cartoon
Of wings interrupted
And a drift of anger
And the teaming flecks of white
Understanding what
Eyes could not
Or I could not
Removed in my distance
With watching

From my distance,
Not a bang, not a rumble of thunder
Like the ground opened or
Taking an elevator
It just
Fell
And a pall of white
Crept over
Crept over until it reached
The water
Between the streets
Crept over
Taller than Trinity
Over the green parks
Touching the water
Reflecting the pall
And the lie of heaven
Crept over as if it were running
And could go no further than the river
Crept over and spread thin and
Fell in upon itself like an echo.

We heard others
Say how awful it must be
Up there
That the better choice
Is to jump

We heard others
Weeping
But you had to understand
You had to understand

I watched flecks of
White on the skymost highest roof
Tumble down
The spear that groped for the sky
Tumble down
And the pall that crept over
And the running
And the start of the waiting
And the eye still looked
And the eye only did not understand
Far worse
Far worse
Looking for the things that
Had fallen
And finding them fallen
To look up
And . . .
And to know there is no answer
But the shock of a pall
And the empty place our eyes see
Like a tongue looks for a tooth
And the brightness of the day
And the lie of heaven
And still looking
And still gone
Still.

How bad must it be
That the only choice
Is to jump
Yet to land
Still looking for the
Missing parts
. . . an amputee
feeling them
and knowing

gone

And ghosts
And no answer on the phone
And
Passed understanding
Cannot
Like I jumped too
But the ground is too far
Or I have fallen through
And there is no bottom
Just the lie of heaven
And the quiet clouds
And stillness
Where noise used to be
No matter how many times
I remember I watch
No matter how many times
Still
fallen in the grey dust
Still fallen
Still falling

I do not understand

Fallen

Across the river
My flesh untouched
But


. . .

(epilogue)

Over the granite
Over the shine
Over the reflections of the setting sun
Over the Hudson and Ellis and Liberty
drifting
white
Some parent said the soul of their son
Went out to sea
Beneath that impartial sky
Some say just gone
Some stare and wait
Still lost in not understanding

I stood in a park
A week later
A park on the other side
And heard the ghosts of sirens still faint
And the thin white pall
Veiling the first few stars

And I hope
Out to sea in the peaceful sky
Ever towards the stars and the sunset
Look down and see the thousands of candles
All the witnesses
Because I can not bear to know
Not understanding
Some empty filled with sky and stars
Where noise
Where lives
It replaced

No lessons
No preaching
No

Just we in our humanity
Lighting candles and speaking
Bravely
While ungrasping a space
Too big to ever contain
Like the sea and the sky
And the drifting paleness that
Goes on until
Spread thin we can not see it
It fades someday
And only the darkening skies
Know it was there.

Gone

. . .

the birds
wheel in circles
something some sound
come upon them sudden
rise in a clotted cloud
gulls and pigeons
starlings and sparrows


when I thought of you
on wings if you were a bird
silver great wings
riding the thermals
a dark
against the sun
a shadow
a wheel and below others
wheeling motionless
wind carried
with no effort
on your part
just moved along
carried on the thermal
current the invisible current
with no terminus
you can see but up

like smoke blown to heaven
no end no edge
just riding upwards
until my eye can not make out
the dark speck
still rising.

. . .

finale

(to my husband)

at the basement landing
a pair of suit pants
that are ripped on the knee
where you jumped the fence
behind the winter garden

you came in,
hugged me,
just as I went to get our daughter from school
and took off the pants
of your good suit
to show me where you had fallen
as you jumped the fence