30 Poems in 30 Days

Memory of an Historic Event

Life was never the same again.

The realms of possibility expanded

to somewhere insane.

It was the day you turned ten.

We can never have that day back.

It was a lost day and since then

you stopped reaching for my hand

stopped curling up on Sundays

in my bed. I understand

Happy Birthday sounded out of sync

and you, my darling daughter

wouldn’t ever let me think

that you’d be so petty as to mind

the whole world watching fireworks

of a completely horrific kind.

You blew the candles on a cake

not baked for a day when love

and reason could forsake

a world you trusted to remain

safe, inherently good,

orderly, nurturing and – well, sane.

And now you’re twenty, every decade

heals the scars. But of what unpredictable

decisions are our lives yet made?