911 Twenty Ten

911 Twenty Ten

We woke one morning to the burning towers,
and watched them fall to the ground.
A decade later we still place flowers
while names of the dead resound.

The pain, the attack, why us?
What had we done to the attacking ones?
Barely through the millennium fuss,
they gulped their oil by tons and tons,

ran our lives as in a sloppy sprint,
a swim through the muck of busy-ness,
Yet always intending a good intent,
clearly unconscious of the craziness.

The few bad apples in the Middle East,
reckless abandon with their feckless deed,
But know I talk of those who on oil feast—
the terrorists yes, but also the Western greed.

We the people no more to blame than Imans or Turks,
for the wiles of the ways of the Western greed,
nor is Islam to blame for the cowardly jerks,
who flew planes into towers at full speed.

How can we stop this relentless pain?
Visions of bodies falling from blazing windows?
Bursts of hatred and tears, nothing gained—
can’t bring back our fallen heroes.

No, we cry in pain and sorrow still,
for the loss of the thirty-five hundred,
and the loss of hope and trust and good will,
for the pain goes on and on, non-refunded.