It's suburbia
When the dogs start howling with
Ambulance sirens

I was just looking at some old comic art
About that time that some see as a start
And the artists all believed that we'd come together
To rebuild and outlast this terrorist weather
But looking around fifteen years later
It seems that our paranoia turned out to be greater
These artists believed that the change in the world
Would result in courage and unity untold

Well, guys, I'm so sorry that we let you all down
If you time traveled, you'd be dissapointed at what's around
Instead of becoming a United planet
Built on peace and courage unlike that before it
We've become this frightened, always fighting thing
I'm sorry for all of the things that we bring

I'm so sorry about the middle east
And about the NSA, and that's just the least
I'm sorry that techniques like waterboarding
We're used and that we don't find it abhorring
I'm sorry we couldn't look past race
To solve the hatred that we face
I'm sorry that one's orientation
Still affects how they're treated in a nation
I'm sorry we didn't learn respect
Because we hurt who we said we'd protect
So to those past artists who've come here to visit
This isn't the world you wanted, isn't it?
I'm so sorry the world turned out this way
I'm not really sure what else I can say

Irony is
Needing a bookmark for Fahrenheit 451
Rooting around in your backpack
And the first thing you pull out
Is a fire energy pokemon card

It would be awfully presumptuous and disrespectful of me
To assume
That I know and understand everything
(For even if I studied one thing for my entire life
I still wouldn't even come close
To knowing everything about that thing)
Or that I could fully understand you
(You and I
Are two different beings
With two very different viewpoints
And for me to assume
That I could see as you do
Would be quite ignorant)

However

It is equally presumptuous and disrespectful of you
To assume
That I am incapable of understanding and knowing
(In fact, I already know quite a bit:
I've been studying up
And though I'm still a beginner
And there are some things I don't quite get yet
I still understand a lot)
Or that you know everything about me
(Again, you and I
Are two different people
And I see things that you don't see
And for you to insist that you can read my mind
Would be the very definition of patronizing)

Fall is (finally) in the air
With a cold front and apples everywhere
With long sleeves in vogue and school back in swing
Costumes in windows and pumpkin everything

Something is brighter and crisper today
(Maybe it's 'cause the humidity went away)
So as fall kicks in with a little breeze
I look forward to a season 'neath fiery trees

When was the last time I felt like this
This curious euphoria, this eagerly learning bliss?

Thinking about it, I've felt it before
The first time being when I was four

When I had tried my own little tests
An encyclopedia convinced me that science was the best

And then again when I was six
I saw a table in a PTA mist

And I became a Brownie Girl Scout
Because I liked badges and camps and helping others out

And when I reached the age of seven
I picked up a violin and found heaven

And in middle school in a Floridian vale
I felt that same rush when I learned how to sail

And in grade eight in the city of Detroit
I found my passion with my activist's voice

As an underclassman, my heart reached new highs
Hiking up to touch the Shenandoah skies

There's been so many choices that I've made
That exhilarated me and made me who I became

And feeling this now as I first try to code
I know I've found a new passion for my mind to download

This room—not his
nor the house, the yard
Though a placard bares his name
it slides out
at a moment’s notice
when the waiting ends
when his old hand stops—
twirling, mindless against the loving quilt

This house-- the same
but different
from a distance
He should be sitting in this still life
an old Sachem
on his lawn chair

This garage—where I stand
still his, strangely

Patient tools
Cherry Chevrolet wait
with work gloves resting...
Cannot bring myself to touch
where his hands last laid them
As if to move a thing
would **** the matrix of the man

His moment rushing toward me....

I can hear their whispers now
Leaves, once forbidden
have gathered in his absence
tangled in his hedges
nestled by the stairs
Chattering together—

“Man with the rake—no longer comes”