SEVEN FOR NINE ELEVEN

Songs of Sorrow,

      Songs of Hope

       Seven for Nine Eleven

                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.

© Copyright John Gilbert, September 12, 2011, 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED