We bear Witness – A 9/11 poem

This poem was written by JoAnn Wendl on September 17, 2001

We bear Witness
 
Sure footed rescuers, alerted hearts and minds, balancing on dusty
smoldering broken steel and glass, pass countless buckets back and
forth in sobering brigade, gently and reverently remove the fallen
broken dead, scattered and in pieces from the treachery of that
tangled grave.
 
With a searching hope that will not die, born live within their
memory’s reach, they stop at the urging of a canine friend. In the
clarity and brilliance of an azure sky, they listen, unmoving, perched
upon the stillness, hearing nothing but the beating of their own brave
hearts.
 
In the eerie glow of work lights as our heroes labor on, amidst the
horror wrought from desperate sickened minds, our broken hearts are
crushed beneath the cranes that come to search their nests, a message
to the world for all mankind.
 
We feel America rising out of the ashes of her dead, a giant anguished
womb on eagle’s wings.  We pray to hold her temper well, her empathy in
tact, to work with a united hope to deliver peace at last. We are the
children of the sacrificed, from families around the world.
 
We are the mourners, and we bear witness.
 
Addendum: September 11, 2008 (Also by JoAnn Wendl)
 
The questions for the Bush administration still remain; Why weren’t
our jets scrambled at the first report of hijacking? And did the
Administration encourage FEMA’s failure to respond to the Katrina
Disaster in an attempt to prove we could handle it ourselves?