I

September morning---
Clear and calm …
Streaking, screaming jets
Collide with the crisp serenity,
Crushing the dreams of thousands
Of world citizens
In one prolonged
Agonizing instant---
Altering perceptions and events
In a tangle
Of terror,
Toppling towers,
And barbaric entombment.

II

All the fallen heroes
Rushing to rescue
Innocent victims of violence…
Trapped between their selfless bravery
And fanatic hatred
Focused on annihilation
Of all hope and happiness…

Gone in the momentous collapse
Of monuments and unsung miracles…
All the fallen heroes,
Mourned and remembered,
Forevermore.

III

Bewildered with rage
And weeping,
We gather and huddle
In streets and parks,
Embracing strangers,
Posting our private grief
On walls and chain-link fences…
Coming together in the spirit
Of ourselves
As though this magnitude
Of love
Could stifle and smother
The animosity,
The atrocity,
That has befallen us.

IV

Weep, world…
Many lost their lives today.

Weep for clashing cultures
Exploding on the world.
The eleventh of September
Collides with human destiny…
Ending all innocence
And immunity.

Weep, world,
Weep in sorrow…
Many lost their lives today…
Yet, beneath the smoldering debris,
A new spirit struggles to erupt.

V

A fragile experiment,
Begun in a time
When humanity defied tyranny
And sought a sanctuary
Of liberty…

Once begun,
There was no assurance
It would survive…

Even now
Tyrants and barbarians
Threaten the frangible frame of freedom.

VI

We will not die---
There is a gentle presence
That gathers strength
In our awareness---
Through all the adversity,
Through all the tears,
Through all that perished
On that frail September day,
We find the substance
Of ourselves
Embedded in all who have gone
Before us…
Grasping intangible threads
Binding us...

VII

Celebrate the loved ones
We have lost…
Celebrate the right to sing
Of one another…
Cherish the links
Connecting us…
To dare to dream,
To seek to hope,
To make festivals
Of images and sounds
Leaping like magic
Across an electric consciousness
Like shooting stars
Across the cosmos
Confronting chaos
With the simple song of ourselves.