Billowing palisades, pewter airfall

            Cascade in slow motion

                           Overflowing the fountain of commerce

                                              Graceful to the eye, hideous to the heart

Soft tarnished silver clouds

            Enfold those futures

                        Spewing them into the Manhattan morning

                                    Nine Eleven O One

Elegant grotesque plumes gently tumble one over another

            Carrying tattered remnants of lives

                        Spirits ripped from bodies

                                    Turning the shells to ash

Is there a torture more sublime

            Moment by moment terror

                        Smelling the hot acrid breath of death

                                    As it approaches their prison in the sky?

Does hope flee quickly

            Or does it leak slowing

                        From the corners of their eyes

                                    As the dusk of life turns to night?

written on a plane from Tucson to Seattle 9/21/01.

Published in our book Telling Tales and Sharing Secrets