Poems After the Attack: 'Ground Zero'

Poetry

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Ground Zero

by Hudson Owen

(October 30, 2001)
If it were a god, it would stand tall,
a thousand feet plus from head to toe,
sunk like a pile into the bedrock,
its crown of lattice and twisted steel
poking above the smoldering ruin,

Exhaling the stench of death;
but breathing in fresh flowers
and graciously accepting prayers,
flexing its powers of silence and awe,
as a young god will; and knowing

In its healing heart its purpose:
that cradled in its arms the myriad lost,
once giddy with a soaring view,
will never again, though we replay them,
experience the sensation of falling.