The Twenty Nine Hundred (a 9/11 Tribute Poem)

Opinion PieceThe Townie is an opinion website. The views expressed in this piece belong solely to the author, and do not represent those held by The Townie.

Twenty-nine hundred began a day
And by night lay at our feet
Speaking to us
From graves of dust and ash

It helps not to know what happened
Such is neither expected, dreamed of
Or wanted
Such things pass all understanding
They are the unreal become real

We cannot raise the twenty-nine hundred
They lay at our feet
Grim reminders looking up
For there is no farther down
Dead is dead and there is no farther down:
We are here and they are there

So this is hell and we are in it
Things two or more can be
At once and the same time true:
We live in sunshine and in storm
In cool morning air
And in a hail of bullets,
A blitzkrieg of airplanes
Bears people who will be
Bombs and battering rams
Not of their choosing
Who never voted for or volunteered
To be missiles of murder;
They prayed to God and to
Their mobile phones:


Heard, if not by God, by dear ones
Equally unwilling;
All prayed in desperation
All prayed in resignation
They were we, save that we and they
Were in different places.

Things that murder are all the same:
People are bullets,
Bullets are airplanes,
Airplanes are bullets;
Buildings are infernos,
Infernos are buildings

The twenty-nine hundred lay at our feet
Begging for justice
We hover above, ghost-like
Bereft of justice and mercy;
Given to anger, hurt and helplessness
We imagine justice
But justice is a sometime thing

Time, we say, will bring justice
But in a world, a universe away;
We cannot wait
We can hardly wait

But the dead will be always
At our feet
When they are no longer heard
By tides of time and memory
Then the very stones will cry out
And we will cry with them
© John Burciaga 9/11/2024