Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

9-11 Poems

One month following the attack of 9-11, eleven year old Aaron Walsh wrote the following poem in his school notebook, trying to make sense of this horrible thing that had happened:

I Hold in My Hands

~ Aaron Walsh, 2001

I hold in my hands ...
The dust.
The dust and wreckage of the towers.
Even though I wasn't there,
I can still feel it.
It has damaged my hands with dirt.
It has damaged my heart with sorrow.
It has damaged my body with fear,
and it has damaged my life with war.

I hold in my hands ...
My life.
My life could soon be filled with war,
cruelty at its worst.
Miles away, I can hear the planes' roaring engines, gliding through the air.

I hold in my hands ...
My future.
My life ahead.
Whether it will be filled with war or peace, we will not know.
My future keeps me going from dawn to dusk.

I hold in my hands ...
Hope.
Hope for the future.
Hope for peace.
Hope for my country's freedom.
And hope for America to win this war on terrorism.

(This poem was not written by me but by Aaron Walsh. Poem was found on http://www.celebrate-american-holidays.com/9-11-Poems.html)

                                                                               

This poem is true for millions they could not be there to experience it but they can still feel the pain it left emotionally and the toll it had on their life in the future. I am using this poem for what I am going to write about a book next.    

This book is about a boys dad who dies in the 9/11 attack on the twin towers, after that he finds a key that he is inspired to find out what it opens, his name is Oskar and he wants to find what that key opens no matter how long it takes. This book is also a very new movie. I do want to see the movie but I can’t. This book has inspired me in so many ways.

First of all when the 9/11 attack happened I was too young to remember. I have seen videos, heard things and have seen the construction place of the memorial. I understand how this hurt the families of the innocent people who died.

This story of what I have read so far which is very little has showed me to never give up on hope. Oskar is so determined to find that lock to that key that he has pretended to be sick from school so that while his mother is at work he went searching the city for that lock. He has done research, asked people, and has done every other possible thing to find what he is looking for.

He has also taught me that to do the impossible you must thing of the impossible. There are millions of locks in New York City and not yet has he found his lock but he knows it’s not impossible.

When I finish reading this book I hope to find out something new that will hopefully change my life forever.