Requiem

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
The recent news regarding the tape of the last moments of flight 93 calls to my mind <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0201/poetry.html#requiem"; target="_blank">this poem</a> from the January 2002 issue of First Things.



Requiem



A payload of people phoning home:

their ghost voices linger, caught on tapes,

rewound, rewound, as if listening could summon them

back into themselves. The last hope?s



supplanted now with clinging to a missed

call, replaying it, imagining words?

but what??equal to the worst

dream, which shook itself, woke, cut the cords



binding earth to sky. Now we go

yawing rudderless into our new history.

Were those God?s smouldering hindquarters we saw

between the towers? Or has this mystery,



being human, stunned even God into absence?

Whence cometh my help? The fire engine

pulling from the station winds its sirens

and we fall silent. Psychopaths grin



from their unmarked vans. Around midnight,

a drunk puking at our garden gate sounds

on the verge of detonating. And why not?

Nothing can surprise me. Night drowns



itself in sleeplessness. Then it?s day.

The veiled rain, dread?s dullest minion,

with chilly fingers drums its lullaby

?not real, not real?on the windowpane.



What?s real? Outside, in thin light,

wet lavender relinquishes its scent,

a bruised sweetness rising through the rain.



Passing the open window, caught a moment

by the cool, still smell, I forget

and almost breathe again.



?Sally Thomas



[ 04-19-2002: Message edited by: roger_ramjet ]</p>
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