In Memoriam
Perfect day dawned in brilliant blue,
shocking canvas of contrast: planes
fly black against far-flung heaven.
Even unbelieving prayer
muttered with quiet resigned breaths
can not foretell or forestall stains
gouging ground, splintering sky, staining
steel, scuttled lives, exhaling blue,
imploding in hydraulic breaths
screaming through city, hill, and plain.
Common words, sweet sacred prayers
lip-synched by believers heaven
sent from hell to transform heaven
marked by the golden crescent, stain
of a singular god and prayer,
cloaked in cheap polyester blue,
costume of the West, boarding planes
inhaling, exhaling, one breath
holy comingling with all breaths,
lifting as one to make heaven
on earth, to be done, in the plane.
It is foretold, on pages stained
sepia older than time, blue
ink and red seeping in prayer.
Father, mother, children all - pray
the ancient songs with soft breaths,
for God cannot hear in this blue
twilight; sing who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name, thy love stained
by unseen portents, for the plane
is a steel-bound casket, the plane
pulses with souls insistent, prey
trembling, mortal flesh and smoke-stained,
metal-wrapped in a dragon's breath.
For the meek, the blessed, to heaven
will float ashen to brilliant blue.
Blue sky trailed by white plane flumes
marking a heaven all pray exists;
God's breath stained by metal and fire.
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Author's Note
Tomorrow marks the tenth year. I think of this elapsed time as the decade of anxiety, for all the years before 9-11 feel marked with an unearned ease of innocence, one to which we as a nation never will return.
Take time to reflect, breathe, pray, remember.
I've spent this evening wondering how difficult the weekend will be, with 9/11 documentaries on in the living room. Thank you for this, Linda...for the meek.
Thank You Linda. I felt so useless that day. Only 3 years earlier I was station a few miles from Ground Zero and could have helped recover but not prevent.
Beautifully written, Linda. I has the intensity of the day softened by time and grief. Nice.
A tough time to revisit. You should get a medal for bravery. *
a difficult time to remember.
But you did it
Thank you for this remembrance here. Peace. *
beautiful and tender in the violence, if such a thing is possible *
A lovely rendering, such soft touch with perhaps one of the most challenging topics. I admire your craft.
Fave.
Close as words can come. Wonderful, Linda.
Superb poem. Fav
Linda you have written a great poem that I found incredibly difficult to read. The "blue" repeat was stunning in all the worst ways.
*
You capture so much here, and in such a lyrical way. Your word choices are perfect, both for their meaning and for the way they blend with the other words. *