The day it all happened
I remember it so well
And this is a story, I almost can't bear to tell
The sun shone through my windows
The birds filled the sky with song
It was the kind of day
Where nothing could go wrong
I kissed all of my babies
I headed out the door
Told my husband I love him
He said I love you more
I was driving down the highway
When I saw a flashing light
I looked up and saw billows of smoke, darker than the night
I froze and glanced around in panic
Then I heard the screams
A thousand daggers in my chest, praying they were bad dreams
But these were no dreams
This was a nightmare
Crimson flames danced everywhere
Then I caught it
In my eye
More planes were plummeting by
The rest was such a blur
All the months after were too obscure
But no one has ever been the same way
As moments before that fateful day...

In those strawberry fields, it seemed
They all marched too alive and real.
The unknowing, maybe sensing, screamed
“There’s no Jericho here to heal!”

In no small way, I understood,
The child watching that television,
There was more evil to match good,
When a plane made its second collision.

That’s when we realized the hardness of tomorrow
Mistakenly seen enough to tell
This was an attack our hearts had to sorrow
This, we knew, when the towers fell.

Still, we remember those things we felt
And try our best to seize the day
We remember when those watching knelt
Heart broken or fighting? Too close to say.


Beneath the rubble of the truth -
Heroes, lovers, sinners, thieves -
Beneath the terror of our youth -
We are all these things beneath.

That does not mean we are all to blame
Though, every one of us is lost
It doesn’t mean our mistakes got a name
Even still, we must pay our cost.

In our busy lives and concerning fates
There is a truth we must admit
As the prices rise and the moment rates
We must be reminded not to forget

There is a time to step back and see
At the demanding cry to all be free
That all that is asked, is a prayer to be
To Him, as He sorrows - cries…

Remember me.

Eagles weep the dust of fury
            Glory hangs in a breeze filled sky
Trumpets howl forth silence
            Empty eyes gaze on debris and cry

Paradox rains upon sweltering souls
            Discordant melodies find no harmonic tone
Sleeping giants fail to wake
           Dreams of horror in daylight come

Restrained talons seek to rip
            Flesh and bone. Retribution wails
Bridled shouts from viper lips          
             Broken tongues speechless, still

Such foreign chaos, grief born questions
            Here rests doubt, fear rooting
Anger to pain beget rage
            Tearing fabric, destroying the shoot

A blast through heart’s cage
            Cries, screams and eternal rage
Why! Demands our soul
            Why? Defiant voices entreat

Into this realm of despair
            Touching sinew of exposed hope
Lifting corpse-like remains
            Our Hope stands, lifted hands

In a speechless voice the whisper comes
            Gentle words rock our perilous stance
Words carefully spoken, deeply heard
            Faith, Hope, Love the memory calls

Again, glorious birds will find their songs
            Heavy banners will lift in a gentle breeze
Clarion call of brass sounds, proclaims
            Life has come and still remains

Just a simple scrap of paper, stained with his blood, dried red,
It was picked up by a passer- by. It’s author newly dead.
The victims in the towers had been pulverized by stone.
And now could be identified by DNA alone.
For about a decade after, his note was saved, unread,
The M.E. was too busy, bones took precedence instead.

Reflecting pools, the well of souls, are where the towers stood.
There’s a garden of remembrance and that’s all well and good.
His widow and his daughters hung his picture on the wall.
It was like a wound reopened when they finally got the call.

She thought he had died quickly; the second plane had struck his floor.
He worked in the South Tower way up high on eighty four.
“We identified this by the blood, it matched his DNA.”
She stared numbly at the note he wrote that sad September day.

You may view the blood stained note and the message that he wrote
In the Nine Eleven museum in Manhattan
When he'd spent the time we're given,
paper saved him from oblivion.
Now his tragic end will never be forgotten.

The tightrope expires
And the skyscraper hollows out.
This hate is vicious and repeated,
Repeated; repeated on the news reel,
And in a Hollywood romance.

We’re skipping generations
Through faded vinyl sound
Of dust mite and crack;
I’m folding digits over chords,
Extinguishing lovers
By turning them to songs.

Oh, reality convenes, convenes
On the mind, and on the consciousness
Of fact. Don’t steal my job,
Don’t **** my land,
And never fall asleep
Under the sun.

There is poetry to mathematics,
Scaling the harmonics of the sound,
Some universal language;
Some bottled message to our brothers
Who are looking back at us
From the distance of the stars.

And, terror is called from every side,
Until we’re terrified to eat or breathe,
In the tremor of a terror
That can never come to be.

The tightrope fell down with the buildings,
But its idea, it still lives on.
We could be on the precipice of better times,
Or under the shadow of a nuclear bomb.