11 September 2006

the images are set deep in our minds
the planes flying into the two new york towers
the one that crashed into the pentagon
the one that fell from the sky in pennsylvania

the rubble the dust the people fleeing
the men and women jumping from the heights
preferring impact to the searing fire
and the looping images of the flying bombs

five years have gone and they are still with us
we still remember we are still afraid
of what could fall upon us from the sky
or what could come like poison to our lives

and nothing seems to quell the tiny dread
that says that this will happen once again
that says that london and madrid
are right here with us not across the sea

we live on a small planet and that can seem
sometimes like a magical ideal a world without
high borders where a person can be free
to wander and to buy and sell and talk

and rest their bodies and expand their minds
but on the other side of this fair coin
are death and hatred anger and long war
the dialectic is made visible