From The Dark Side of the Moon

From the Rubble

The road well traveled
left hearts and understanding
behind as muddy footprints,
for others to come along
and trample with every day
business, while

busy going on
their ways as life follows
on its normal course,
bombs igniting underneath
the unsuspecting travelers,
impaled by the very steel
which promised to protect,
serve, and save people’s lives

yet the multitudes of death
seem to vaporize and envelope
the senses as if they were
a morning misting dew,
fading within the sunrise,
dissipating as if it were never
really there at all

and the families of all nations
grieve and know their loss,
families are deprived
from that which some may
never fully understand
yet embrace as a normal
existence, missing

family members unknown
except in album keepsakes
of faded memories, left
in their rubble of life.

To the masses lost and the survivors of New York City 911, Indonesia, Haiti, Chile, and Japan, in memory of their suffering, loss of life and loved ones’; may they never be forgotten and to All Poets who have or will take the leap, to go out on a limb and write of love or loss, real or imagined, rhymed or unrhymed, in an attempt to articulate life and preserve the art of love and the hearts who dare to write so that others may feel how we Poets see the rest of the world.

—Michael H. Hanson, Poet and Author (New Jersey)