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Over the rubble of the World Trade Center
The grand sad unimaginable confusion of souls
Rose from towers mangled steel--to afterlives all--
All eyes drawn to that vacuum in the sky's next move
Where the ghost dance of bodhisattva firemen
& holy martyrs of terror--holy martyrs lost &
Missing, a great far reaching cry spreading wild
Across the planet--the crying unity of undying pain--
All the dead circling above ambulance drivers &
From afar in Manhattan's canyon looking up through
Smoke--janitors, multi-millionaires, passengers
Belted in their missileseats, stewardess with tender hands
Tied behind her back--no more bills, no lives to return to,
No Korans & Bibles, no quotes of stocks to comfort them.
Bloodplanes break the silence of clouds--strangely
Lonesome--as we, the living, pierce ourselves with the
Hooks of memory, digging without rest, digging night
& day, throwing ourselves into the holes of grief in
Search of ourselves changed forever--looking up,
Seeing nothing, in disbelief looking up again.
13 September 2001
©2001, Jim Cohn
Jim Cohn is a poet, performer, lecturer & the founder of the Museum of American Poetics.
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