|
|
omega
Letters
overflowing inboxes Busy
conversations Coffee
perking Elevators
climbing Plants
watered It
is the day beginning on
Tuesday the
last Tuesday Empty
tables at
Windows on the World waiting
for glittering
chats and gleaming
silver The
world waiting for trade for
the exchange of who
owns what and where and
for who will win and who will lose And
the morning drifted by as
mornings do with
nothing outstanding nothing
understanding that
this is all the
mornings there would be A
shudder, a powerful pull a
push, a gust, a split an
opening into sky and flame and
smoke beyond all night and
dust beyond all deserts and
a clutching of the building on
itself as
it tried within its bones to
stand And
its heart was melting and
souls were flying And
a sound of
twin pain was
to its side another
scrape of metal
on metal and glass on
glass and the whoosh of
air and fuel and flame and
the pall of smoke that
ate the breath of
everything that moved Side
by side they
stood two
terrible wounds pulling
them apart the
steel without gleaming the
steel within melting their
people all
their dear and lovely people that
they knew that
they harbored every
day every Tuesday every
floor, every suite all
of this falling slowly surely
down in a measured
sure death and
suddenly one without
the ability to stand longer fell and
in its falling lasted
lifetimes centuries
of hopes sighs
dreams falling
with pictures with
eyeglasses with
outboxes whose papers flew far
beyond their intended
destinations into
forever And
the other the
one who waited still
stood for awhile and
at last let go nothing
to do but fall nowhere
to go but where the
other had gone no
reason to stay the
lonely sky without its twin too
much too
long too
alone And
as it fell and
all within part
of its terrible death there
were years in its falling there
were centuries of conversations and
eons of memories and
civilizations of laughter and tears and
birthdays and life celebrations and
first days and last days and
the middle that we know as
life and
as it fell on itself bone
by bone of
its very existence becoming
dust the
sky wrenched and twisted and
pulled away from
the sound the
awful tearing sound and
tried to withdraw from
the smoke that
was the life breath of
the building and
of its children those
it harbored every
day and
the silence became unattainable any
more for
those watching hearing mouths
open the
silence only belonged to
those within
whose
last desperate day was
that day as
they left the
highest place they
had ever been to
go to the
truly highest
place angels and
wings of angels and
feathers going
up into the
clear blue sky far
above the smoke far
beyond the terrible
groan and roar far
into where we believe heaven is, far
into where we believe all
hands were awake, alert and
pulling them upwards fast out
of the pain out
of the grief and
into the music of peace.
this poem was written on 16 september 2001 by susan godman rager in honor and in memory of those lost 11 september 2001 c2001-2002 SG Rager sgrager@ragerlaw.com This page is part of the Northern Neck of Virginia Law Page web site. You may wish to also view the 9-11-02 Poem, written 29 August 2002.
|