September 11th 

Inauspicious beginning --
students board buses
workers ride trains
commuters drive cars

Terrorists enter planes.

Nine o’clock passes
homework completed, I sit
absorbing “deindividuation”
from the Psychology overhead
The Question:
Promised no retribution
no detection
You can do anything.
What do you do?

A teacher walks through the door
The trade center struck
Lesson plan abandoned 
for CNN
Question answered.

Bells ring.
We pass through the hallways
amidst smiling laughing students
who haven’t heard

Calculus integrals ignored
Building’s integrity destroyed
We watch it collapse
The somber dust cloud of Manhattan
settles
envelops the school --

Who can learn
when the psyche of the nation
is in shock?

Fingers point
Retribution promised
Palestinians celebrate in the streets
handing out candy
Don’t they see? --
We are as they
human
breathingcaringthinking
hurting.

More pain

suspicion
pain and fear
phone lines clog with caring
as the pentagon burns
and innocence incinerates.

Yet in this hour,
I hope for peace.
Bring war to this earth
it will escalate
perhaps forever destroy.
There may be no more grandchildren.

*Elisa Hitt
September 11th 2001

permission granted to reproduce