9/11/14

Sandy Solomon

September 2001

       our part/To murmur
       name upon name...
      W.B. Yeats, Easter 1916

How to speak of blood but as blood,
bone but as bone, and ash, ash,
ash for the urns of the many unfound, name
upon name murmured--daughter and son,
husband, wife, parent, friend, or none--
gone under a true September morning
sun while at home light latticed the carpets
(dust motes floating as the TV droned)
and panes seemed the slightest obstacle
to clear, call it perfect, day beyond


as helplessly we watched their murder done
(in fire and air and the long groan--earth
to earth--of gravity); all screened and screened
again as if anyone could master
their unending deaths, the thousands, blood and bone
buried, ashes risen in the wind and fallen
with the buildings’ dust, name on name to sound,
steady as rain’s light drum, multiple,
resolved--daughter and son, husband,
wife, mother, father, friend, or none:
Nural and Anna, Sakara, Sean, and Glenn,
Arianne, Irina, Susnil, Elena, and John.

            Published in The Philadelphia Inquirer
            September 9, 2002


X. J. Kennedy (Click to listen through Writer's Almanac)

September Twelfth, 2001

Two caught on film who hurtle
from the eighty-second floor, 
choosing between a fireball
and to jump holding hands, 

aren't us. I wake beside you, 
stretch, scratch, taste the air, 
the incredible joy of coffee
and the morning light. 

Alive, we open eyelids
on our pitiful share of time, 
we bubbles rising and bursting
in a boiling pot.