The Aftermath

This was a poem written onboard a plane that I travelled from the Midwest to the East Coast, on Sep 16th, not 5 days after that terrible incident on 9/11. I couldnt but help think of that one incident that rocked everyone in the world. 

Watching bewitched from within a cockpit,

Two eyes, The Towers twin approached,

While t’was murder & mayhem to most,

Was it liberation they sought?

Metal mangled with cured concrete,

Confined within a conference room of deals,

Jet fuel gushed in an orange ball of flame,

Mocking the shocked gaze of the Liberty Dame.

Those eyes they partook it all,

As souls vanished vanquished,

Yet they also did witness,

Twice over a heroic deed.

Stone crumbled to acrid debris,

Steel melted to a lava of dust,

Those bedeviled eyes beheld a sight,

A phenomenon so far unbeknownst.

Lives of fear, terror and tear,

Despair, grief, and lack of hope.

Suddenly snuffed, they now travelled,

Uplifted through a gilded door.

“Will they these scared lives”,

Asked the eyes, “Sinful and unpunished go?”

Atleast in life after will they learn,

How in excess they had erred?

As one after another, the Doorman,

Ushered in those charred souls,

Soon as they passed the Golden Gate,

Cheerful turned their candor.

Those eyes, shocked now, beyond belief,

Wide and confused they protested,

“Leaving us lag far behind”,

“T’isn’t justice they move ahead”.

They tried a bustle and jostle ahead,

Forcing forward through the line,

To be rudely shown their place,

For this now was an act Divine.

They pleaded, begged and asked to know,

What the reason was, behind this fate?

Having only done, as upon them bade,

Surely they deserved to go through the gate?

The Doorman sighed, paused and pondered,

Finished with the last of the many thousand.

Turning towards them with great sadness,

He said words that were to hound.

“You are cursed” said He, “My wretched ones”,

“For you are the ones who have wronged”,

“Taken away what was not yours”,

“Can you ever be pardoned?”.

“Go forth now, you are doomed to haunt”,

“The dark nights of all your kind”,

“Wake them unto a world of peace”,

“If you wish repentance from this bind”.

“Till then you shall dwell in places”,

“Of pain, torture and gore”,

“You are banished from this day on”,

“To tasks difficult and dour chores”.

So those eyes they gathered together,

It’s other withered companions,

And the Doorman He walked far away,

Wiping away an uncontrollable tear.

He hoped those grieving left behind,

Realized for the ones that had left,

Justice to them, though unsaid & unseen,

Had surely and certainly been served.