Poems to Remember

Feeling helpless to do anything about the events of the last two weeks, I wrote this verse. I think of it as a song, but I don't write music. If anyone can set it to music, or knows someone effected by the events of the last two weeks who might find comfort in this, please use it as you can.
Therese Murphy 9/21/01
Orlando, Florida
tfmurphy@bigfoot.com
407-896-9995

We Are With You Now

These our cities, these are our sisters
These are our brothers who perished this day
Close your eyes and try to feel this union of spirits
Hold it inside you as you start to find your way

What do you need, what can we give you
You have our blood, our hearts and our prayers
Where is the language to solace, to comfort
Does it lighten you pain to know it is shared

Refrain:
We are with you now
We send the best we have to offer
We are with you now
In each and every way that matters
We'll love and stand beside you
In horror, hope and healing
We are with you now
And we will not forget
You are part of us forever

Part of our struggle,part of our mission
Is moving ahead, while still wondering why
We can hold onto this, this we do know:
Spirit, love and memories never die

I feel a obliged to the lost and the living
To find and to do all the good that I can
Though nothing will ever balance the losses
The sacrifice is greater if it leaves us lesser than

Refrain

With our shattered lives and wounded spirits
Let us treat each other like the grieving souls we are
We can honor the dead, the mourning and the heroes
Only by opening our tired, broken hearts

Tonight we'll offer silent prayers
In place of words, which come so hard
We'll embrace you ino our hopes and thoughts
As though you could be in our arms

Refrain

Therese Murphy

Change Hurts - September 11

On September eleventh everything changed
Its events brought horror, uncertainty, shame
How can this happen? Who did this to me?
This does not happen! How can this be?
Who could conceive such a horrible crime?
How could they map it to places and time?
Who could plan terror on scales not seen yet?
And then convince others to aid and abet?

We pray for the families of all those souls lost
We grieve and mourn with them - a terrible cost
Manhattans best, our Washington planners
Air travelers, firefighters, and New Yorks Finest
We applaud all on the bucket brigade
Rescue workers, nurses, all those giving aid
Our spirits unbroken, our resolve remains hardy
Take heart in the efforts of this recovery party

Who could enact such awful depravity?
Cataclysmic events of such immense gravity
What makes them unlike us? What makes them abate?
How can they justify such acts of hate?
How do they think? Are they inhuman?
How do we comprehend, normalcy resuming?
How can such evil exist in this place?
How do we find it and give it a face?
How is it born? What makes it grow?
Where are the answers that we need to know?

If Oklahoma was terror, what does THIS mean?
How do we process the images seen?
Our psyches been violated, surely as rape
The devil came in, he got past the gate
And what of the gate, so strong in our minds?
How could such evil get past the lines?
How do we rebuild it - repair the breach?
In mind and in reality - do we have this reach?

Terror walks among us, not to be seen
Procreating evil wherever its been
How do we conquer invisible foes?
This is our dilemma and nobody knows
We lost our innocence September eleventh
Just like our parents December seventh
History repeats but our generation is tasked
With foes unimagined and questions unasked

Our flowers, our poems, our prayers and our candles
Begin to heal wounds, help us get a handle
But what of our children so indelibly marked
Is there a way to get out of this dark?
Our minds need new chambers to store what weve seen
To process the pictures, to know what they mean
To conjure the questions that need to be asked
To formulate resolve, to avenge, get to task

Our world is physically shattered and marred
And something within, so hurt and so scarred
Well heal and rebuild and avenge this we must
Lest we lose yet another valued human trust
We will move forward, learn from this sad song
Draw lines in the sand, not borders but right/wrong
Right will stand together and in memory of souls lost
Well fight the invisible and win at all cost

______________________

Dedicated to the victims of this tragedy and their families.

Laurie Dunn Toronto September 16, 2001 jlrmdunn@sympatico.ca

Tragedy: a hiaku by gedren_y

Reason, justice, truth,
I hope this day will live on,
Emotion, pain, love.

We must never forget, for in forgeting we lose the unity we now share.

"War is not always justice, but justice, true justice, is always right."
The Trampoline Dance Angel