The Turn of Tuesday

There was only one turn of the century,
one turn of their heads,
of their eyes,
of their moral compasses,

There were things that survived the moving of the second hand,
and things that could not get past its merely secondary notions,
incidental though they may be,

I lost it sometime in mid September,
just as everyone else had,

when we were blinded by the ash,
and the clouding of an unfathomable death,

when we were told it was the end of our innocence,
that we would feel about this day,
the way they all felt many Decembers ago,

But there was a time for everything,
and there were many turns,
of many seasons,
of many tides,

if only I could recall what it was like standing at the gates,
waving out a clean window,

looking ahead at many Suns to come,

if only---