September 11

What did you feel the day the Towers fell?
Was your soul seared as well?
Burned by flaming fuel
vomiting through smashed glass
cascading in fiery fountains
upon the rubble mountains;
did you know then
the devil dwells not in hell
but walks amongst us
disguised as hate
venomous, disgusting, cruel;
That evil doesn't wait
for Good to prepare; to be aware
and revels as it cremates, incinerates
turning innocence to ashes
that filter across the sun's rays
creating night from day
to lie in gray dunes;
cinders glowing in the ruins?

What did you feel the day the Towers fell?
Did your courage fail as well?
Extinguished with the lives of rescuers
forever lost in the sewers of calamity
buried under aluminum and smoldering debris.
Did you think Trinity's old grave yard
strewn with the shredded paper
and ragged, jagged shards
of peoples' decimated lives
was also the cemetery of our dreams.
And as tears fell in endless streams
carving new names,
a common death date shared,
upon the blackened stones
did you despair and cease to care?

What did you feel the day the Towers fell?
Did your hope fade as well?
Diminished by the overwhelming toll
of finding no one whole;
Obliterated. Ground to dust.
Did you know the task must
change to desperate search
for fingers, glasses, wedding rings.
ANYTHING.
All to satisfy a madman's lust.
Watching mourning mothers, fathers
sisters, brothers sadly pinning
fresh faces on rain-stained walls,
did you understand that
no trace would be found at all?

What did you feel the day the Towers fell?
Was your spirit crushed as well?
or did you hear it too? Far away,
An eagle in her mountain aerie
keening for her wounded children,
screaming to avenge her missing kin,
Listening, did you hear
her fierce cry streaming on the wind?
Did you feel her rise up, eyes flashing,
blazing arrows in her razor talons,
to hurl her fearsome darts
into her enemy's craven heart?
Did you sense her dark, foreboding shadow
cross the doors of filthy, flea-infested caves
that hide the cowardly foe
striking terror in the terrorist mind,
annihilation justified, realized
with savage raptor rage?

What did you feel the day the Towers fell?
Did you know we would heal as well?
Hearts unbroken, souls unburned
courage and hope returned,
Triumphant in our freedom's fight;
Comforted our cause is right;
Secure in our country's awesome might.
Steel of planes and buildings gone,
reforged into the mettle of our brotherhood.
Hands of color clasped in white
held high, unified in remembrance
of friends who stood
and paid the final price
all bound by blood that ran together
September eleven.

--Anne Schmid