We know the shadows Better than we know Ourselves We feign surprise at how frail they are How easily they vanish When we step from darkness How unfamiliar they are with memory Of that brilliant autumn morning When shimmering fragments Would be caught in free fall by the sun Embracing the monstrous As if it were no more than A glittering souvenir in a shaker globe For we do not own peace Just as the shadows Do not own defeat And the metal slivers flipping through sunlight Did not mean to appear so gay As they tore away from the two great pillars Scattered with all the strength of air There will be no comfort Except in small acts And daily tasks As we stand Clinging to a shadow Which must leave us for daylight As others have gone An out of focus memory of terra firma Refracting light Deluding us with optimism In the confetti of voices That flew from those buildings The last free notes in a blue sky
Ground Zero
In my dream the people I like Come walking toward me Smiling and holding hands We are happy to see each other And they are glad That I am all right Living so close To the area known as Ground Zero And when it thunders at night I am sure it is another building falling And though the dead remain unburied Their dreams scatter through our sleep And teach us that only the living Embrace the anguish of the unknown For as I walk through acrid air Stained with the scent of melted plastic Air dehydrated by fire Drained of the sweet smell of autumn As I inhale an atmosphere lively with burning particles And watch the Hudson River dredged For deep drawing barges To hold scrambled ribbons of iron lifted by cranes State Troopers mind the barricades And military in camouflage walk in teams Toward the wreckage As I wait at a barricade for the dry cleaners To walk my clothes out In this new neighborhood Where each day marks a new need And pictures of the missing lift in the breeze The walls are filled with these pictures And corners are filled with flowers and candles Even in this city where you could lose your shirt No one touches these things And no one shouts on these streets Where they come to remember Where they come looking To find what we've lost
Barricades
We go about the process The West Side highway empty of cars Trucks rolling through loaded with cement barricades Similar to those positioned around the courthouse Where the trials of the 1993 bombing took place While other trucks drive away loaded With ribbons of twisted girders marked in yellow: WTC 7 One piece of which, not even fifty men could lift Yet these fell on fragile skin At the end of my block makeshift stretchers are stacked Made of 2x4ıs and plywood Unused, as if leftover from the Civil War Yet days ago were unloaded with the speed of adrenaline Along with a table of bottled water Which no one drank Shall we also barricade our hearts, out of longing For the distraction of a dazzling autumn morning As we step gingerly past the smoking remnants That crouch like an ugly sideshow at the end of Greenwich Street People have to work And arrive, breath seizing Photo ID swinging on chains around their necks Amid the roar of cranes lifting debris onto Hudson River barges This is a 24 hour job The streets are an obstacle course of blue barricades And state troopers and national guard and NYPD My ID is securely stashed in a waist pack To prove I belong That I am not merely one of the curious Or a criminal intent on another invasion of the heart And though many of us have stopped crying It is still possible to be caught off guard By a black and white xerox bearing the picture Of an average looking man and the brief message ³Please Help Us Find Our Dad² This is the cold recognition That autumn used to be filled with the success of harvest But now is crammed with the urgency of smoke And the methodical sorting through this terrible undoing
Daily Rumors
And so the fatigue sets in Under the unsettling light of a waxing moon The ocean going vessels of my heart Sit docked in darkness Waiting to be called out To face my ignorance Before I collapse in the arms of autumn How fortunate that the Hudson River is smooth tonight And evening moves with grace In the embers of my fatigue I am moving toward tomorrow And the barricades of my youth The tricksters who knew that those who loved me best Would be passed by For the ones who did not love me at all Let me find the declaimers in their beds And kiss them on the forehead To seal the dreams I did not value Stuffed with yesterdays Like hordeurves at a party The streets are open now Though rumors are still collected daily There are phones and gas and lights In heaven
