Part of Me

This poem was written twenty years ago.

It was something I never intended to write and I resisted mightily as I saw more and more tributes and poems contributed online.  But some of these lines kept running thru my head and I eventually jotted them down, and it didn't take long for the whole thing to spill out.

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Part of Me

9.11.2011

​Perhaps our paths once crossed each other's
On some nameless avenue;
Perhaps we could have been like brothers
Best of friends — both me and you.
But now you’re gone — it wasn’t fair
It could have happened anywhere
But I was here and you were there
And now we’ll never know.
 
Part of me was lost forever
When your world came crashing down.
Simple things I used to treasure
Lay in rubble on the ground.
In a stroke of untold violence
Terror rained on liberty;
Now I’ve found within the silence — 
Lost with you was part of me.
 
Perhaps I never would have met you
Had we lived a thousand years;
But from this day I’ll not forget you
Nor this vision blurred by tears.
If we knew then what we know now
If we could turn back time somehow
If you could hear these words we vow:
You’ll live within our hearts.
 
The price of freedom just got higher
Paid by heroes by the score;
But dreams will not be quenched by fire — 
Hope shall rise from ash once more.