
Billowing palisades, pewter airfalls
Cascade in slow motion
Overflowing the fountain of commerce
Graceful to the eye, hideous to the heart
People, hundreds
People, one by one
Living lives, forecasting futures
Nine, eleven, o’one
Soft tarnished silver clouds
Enfold those potentials
Tattered remnants of lives
Spewed into the Manhattan morning
Elegant grotesque plumes
Gently tumble one over another
Spirits ripped from bodies
Turning the shells to ash
Is there a torture more absolute
Moment by moment terror
Smelling the hot acrid breath of death
As it approaches their prison in the sky?
Does hope flee quickly
Or does it leak slowing
From the corners of their eyes
As the dusk of life turns to night?
written on a plane to Seattle 9/21/01.
Beautiful.
Sadly real.
Thank you Vicki. A truly devastating memory.