Sunday, September 11, 2011

9/11 Pantoum


The danger of memory is that it never dies.
I was ten and still remember America’s shocked face,
And the smoke and the ash covered the skies
On the day the towers fell from grace.

I was ten and still remember America’s shocked face,
And for a time the rain meant what the poets said,
On the day the towers fell from grace
And war and dissension wed.

And for a time the rain meant what the poets said—
Complacent ash falls ghostly, thickly gray,
And war and dissension wed.
And spectral figures loom in the smoke of dead Pompey.

Complacent ash falls ghostly, thickly gray—
Obscuring the memory of the past ten years
And spectral figures loom in the ruins of dead Pompey:
The mournful strings behind the keening of our tears.

Obscured the memory of the past ten years—
And this land has written on the wall:
The mournful strings behind the keening of our tears
Still cry defiance. Hell was paid; there was no fall.

And this land has written on the wall,
And the smoke and the ash that covered the skies
Still cries defiance. Hell was paid; there was no fall:
Because the danger of memory is that it never dies.