In the Shade
I've wandered in this empty hole
for forty days that seemed like years,
their smoldering shattered bones
provoking still unbidden tears.
Each time I gazed into the pit
where once the towers stood
shading all who strolled below,
I lingered longer than I should.
As growing anger, fingers splayed,
reached for throats I could not squeeze,
I searched for answers in the dust,
face upturned, to catch the breeze.
Looking. . .listening. . .for some sign
we'd spy a leg, a hand, a bloody head
as the skies, no longer silent, roared
with Air Force One, drowning out our dead.
Their graves, I fear, will bear no stone
to mark where they are scattered now
in the cool shade of a big steel cross
that soothes the ashes on my brow.
©September 30, 2006 Nancy L. Meek
|