Compassion Post 9/11

Compassion After 9/11/01

i.

There is a space
in New York City
where once stood
The Twin Towers
silently weeping,
silently weeping,

no one shall bury its memory
if a candlelight vigil
is held in every heart…..

ii.

If ever we have felt a bitter veil of tears
running down the rivers of our face
and remembered why we shed them,
we would know compassion.

If ever we have lain in bed, too sick
or injured, without energy to lift even
a finger in a curse or blessing,
we would know compassion.

If ever we have lost a Loved One,
so dear to us for any of 10000 reasons,
felt that bottomless hole, that absence of presence,
we would know compassion.

If ever a hand or word betrayed us with a bitter cup
and scorpion sting,
filled us with a blood-curdling scream of despair,
forgetful of Love’s faintest memory,
we would know compassion.

If ever we have loved a leafy plant, a sacred grove
a rock of ages, the colours of sunrise, the embrace
of velvet nights, the glance of eternity in a stormy sky,
we would know compassion.

If ever we have loved a man woman or child, a mother land
an ideal that should never perish for which we would gladly
give our lives, bewildered by the unrelenting
grace of devotion and the all-consuming fire of love.

we would know compassion,
our birthright.

iii.

it is too painful
to remember
to think my country
of liberty and justice for all
would have,
could have
orchestrated that fateful day
by omission or commission
yet proof abounds if one
should look
for the answers that lie
in the beLIEf that God
has a plan that is rightfully
*mine*.

Only.


iv.

Heart to Heart
freedom rings
in silence
that will never seek
to do harm,
to utter words
that cruelly sting
one's soul
to fly planes
to shower bombs
to fly planes
to break
one's spirit.