The day we lost our innocence

PART I


The sound is beyond my ears
My eyes could not believe it
Smoke is playing, breathing,
Burning my eyes.
The smell of death entered my mouth.

The uncertainty became grief,
The penalty deep.
A great scent is embedded in my stomach,
In my neck in my temporal bones.

How could this be? Why?
In the sky is the big gray cloud.
I walk over the bridge and see the city bleeding, burning,
burning life, beauty, future.
The nerves take hold of me but I lose myself
in the sea of anxiety in which I swim.

Hands sweat puddles on the floor.
The Ambulances buzz at sound breaking speeds.
I'm afraid of the fear I have.
I fear for the world, for what can now happen, retaliation?
But I feel hate, anger, grief. I want justice…..

A friend dies, a brother is no more.
Three other children cry and others will never know
on whose dreams they were meant to be.
Mirtha wears her black sweater, weeping, embracing me.
We mourn for Eugenio, whom we know not to live.



PART II


From my home I don’t see them anymore.
The focus of lights he saw from Jackson,
from Graham, from Ridgewood….
I am filled with pity by the bricks, the iron, the metal.
I feel sorry for the huge sun which now is not
blocked by the absent towers,

They’ve stabbed "my city", which still bleeds
They came in, in full daylight, while it slept
and raped it, they’ve fouled it , they’ve tortured it.
They’ve pulled the most intimate fibers.
The dumped in an alley for the rats to walk over.



But they forgot about us, our feelings…
Our pride, our love, our passion.

We can not go backward, because
we lost our innocence,
but not our courage.
Do not underestimate us ... ...



ACD
Sept.11, 2001

To be continued ....