Beth Camp Historical Fiction

Monday, April 15, 2013

M is for Marathon . . .

I'm waiting for news:
Will another plane fall from the sky?
Here and not over there
in some sunburned, far-off land
where people speak an
entirely different language
of violence.

We endure this new commonplace.
What began with innocence,
an annual challenge,
now neighbors watch neighbor;
we notice with a sharp sense of readiness
when a package is left, abandoned,
and our police and firemen walk
once again into the smoke left by bombs.
We have entered the 
age of the marathon,
no longer does the race twist 
on subterfuge,
a dropped golden apple. 
Instead we light candles to remember the dead
and tell each other: Never again.

When we traveled in Italy recently, we were told not to eat at MacDonald's -- not for the food; the restaurant was a target for terrorists. So, of course, we ate there when we would rather be eating pasta, but we ate there to make a point. That terrorists or the threat of terrorism would not change what we could do.Throughout that short meal, I kept wondering what our families would think if that day had been chosen for an attack. In London, so many bomb threats have been made at Harrods, the famous department store, that people routinely file out at the sound of sirens. Now we have Boston to remember, and I wonder again what changes are ahead.

Read what others have written to celebrate April, National Poetry Month:
NaPoWriMo at http://www.napowrimo.net/participants-sites/
A-Z Challenge at http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com



12 comments:

  1. Well put. Thank you for finding the words that were lost to me...

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  2. As of this first evening, the authorities have not determined who is responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings and they have not assessed the evidence enough to attribute this crime to a particular profile (foreign or domestic).

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  3. Very well said, and I agree with you about not allowing terror to change what we do.

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  4. Love your attitude and bravery about not being intimidated by the prospect of terrorism. Thank you for your poem, Beth. xoA

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  5. I don't understand why evil people target innocent people. It is beyond my comprehension and makes me so sad.

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  6. Anonymous6:09 AM

    Thank you, Beth, for expressing our sorrow and our determination.
    Karen

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  7. Thank you all for commenting. It's the morning after, and I'm still stunned by how lives have been forever changed. What should have been a joy and celebration now becomes a symbol of how we cannot separate our politics or violence from our daily lives. Even as a new morning begins, some of us will face a day of sorrow. It's hard for me to separate the Marathon bombing from the 9/11 attacks. I visited friends in New Jersey and remember a house, just a normal house with a flower garden in front, pointed out as once the home of a fireman who lost his life in the Twin Towers.

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  8. Very well said.

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  9. It's a horrible part of today's reality, but I always think of the innocent people (including many children) dying overseas because of Western airstrikes, too.

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  10. Sad and beautiful, Beth.
    Karen Rice

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  11. Thanks for sharing your poem. How brave and wonderful of you and your family to make your statement as well by eating at McD's.

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  12. redpen32110:46 AM

    Thank you for connecting us with your words. Together transcends countries and ideologies.

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