In truth, I miss the first clue.
But I do not miss the second.
The gunning roar, so close overhead
that its maker near touches the treetops
whose leafy limbs canopy my garden deck.
Low, loud, determined, the troubling
tremble comes on the attack from the North.
It tickles my brain, but at first,
like a dream after waking,
I cannot grasp it, a notion un-noted.
It is the fishing line to the fish,
a threat unseen. I read on
as the jet skims directly overhead.
I can avoid its presence no longer,
it rattles and pounds at all beneath.
The roar grows ever more persistent.
It is revving up, a big-effort runway
whine and gunning for downtown.
My eyes follow the sound
It is a fearsome, screeching hawk
as it aims to rip apart
its unsuspecting prey.
I hear a pop, a softball into a catcher’s mitt,
a muffled report that says “Have no worry,
I am just a child’s game.”
No. I do not trust the disguise.
It is a harsh attack, unsafe, unkind.
Hastily, and with a purpose,
I load the journalist’s tools:
pen, note pad, phone, into a bag.
A deskman answers my call:
“I am off to the towers,” I tell him.
“Go. Go. Go.”
I board my bicycle and pedal
toward the unnatural clouds
rising into the trembling sky.