You who only wanted to work and have children and have
life have passed. You
have been thrust into a darkness we can only imagine. For in
a blink of any eye life was snatched from you and now you are
below the steel and the concrete of our fallen symbol. You are
the people of us all. You 
are
the butcher and the banker and the fireman and the mother. You
have all gone into the smoky darkness of our billowing sorrow.
What can we say to those images on our screens.
My God. My God. My father my mother my brother my son my daughter.
You are all gone in that crumbling moment when the skyscrapers
fell from the sky. We sit in disbelief in our quiet homes rent
asunder by the evil. We grab our children and our wives and our
husbands and huddle in basements and watch while you are in your
tomb of concrete and steel. We watch and wonder if our buildings
will fall for us now.
For the world has changed has it not? We have lost
our innocence again and our children no more. You have done this
for us by your sacrifice. We have the luxury of caution and the
weary eye. But you have no more luxuries. You died with a coffee cup, a brief case, a handshake.
You wrote, laughed, and worried. You thought of the day the year,
the century. You were us. A beautiful day yawned outside until
that screaming darkness slammed into your window. Then you fell
and we watched.
So I have no more words. They are precious few
now. Only a poet can utter the desolation and sorrow and I must
invoke one..
So stop all the clocks…silence the pianos.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one; Pack up the
moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up
the wood; For now nothing can come
to any good. Sleep tight my friends. Sleep tight. My fallen countrymen.
and awarded "Editor's
Choice" by the American Library Association. He is also
the author of TOBACCO STICKS & MICA HIGHWAYS.