Memories of 9/11

I was eating a fried egg sandwich in the great rotunda hall,

Where the entrance to the flow of men, that mighty human sprawl,

Took on a festive bent, with pinwheel spinning doors at speed,

And the drumming march of random steps intent on commerce deeds,

Rumbling, shifting, sliding souls on limbs of those so bold,

In lively pace to move toward fate, the tolling bell not tolled.

Barely, in the bite of bread to reach the softened golden egg,

The whispering of the banks of lifts, the double doors' extended maws

Open to receive the milling mass, hushed in daily apprehension, flushed in expectation, great and small,

A nervous hum in the crush of lines, the dreams of business intercourse,

Soldiers, trained in sum discourse, filing, marching through the hall,

Waiting turn, the wait to earn, in the halls of the heart of the moneyed world.

Halfway down, the hardened crust, a poor resist to grinding mouth, lunch disturbed,

I heard a yielding mournful grate, a noise above, now joined within, to add vibrating sound.

Rumbling, shuddering ground to warrant serious look-around,

With heads swung back and forth to search the thunder in the vaults above,

I thought I saw a dove, glimpsed from far below, wheel and dive and swoop out low,

As if to signal flight, extreme, and caution those who moved too slow.

The sound of grumbling trains, in non-existent tracks, increased the doppler pulses heightened whine,

Approached the suited, waiting backs, to cause poised ears bent, mid-step, in case,

And those still shifting, turned to face an unknown force, just set in place.

The windows, large, once streaming sun, now quivered in a violent shake,

A darkened lake of rippling waves, preparing for the ending quake,

The jaws no longer bit the yellowed mass, but gaped at odd shapes falling fast.

The milling mass, now cued, at last, but unaware of what had passed, resolved, in tasks,

That sound so vast, now brought so near, took flight, at last, from doors cracked in the blast.

The ash, the stones that fell so fast, my sandwich lost, forgotten half, lost for all, and all to lost,

The running, falling, graying throngs, escaping all that could belong, at perilous, bodied cost.

The times gone by, the sorrowed fray, the empty space still sits, today, memories forever,

A sentinel, yet to be built, deep passion left for those with guilt, no heart can sever.

I call those images back, to when my eyes reviewed the towers' waste,

And see the falling whitish rain, and in my mouth I taste the choking grain,

A flavor, fast, which I am failed to other tastes regain, and see false clouds deeply spread, again.

I see the covered forms in flight, through strangely whitish night, and hold this view, forever formed,

In darkness, too, with ghost filled brightened light.