Someone asked a firefighter,
after the fire,
after the buildings collapsed:

Where are the bodies?
He pointed to the gray dust
covering his face and clothes.

It is horrific to imagine
that these towers became
a huge crematorium

of jet fuel, concrete
and superheated steel,
but no more horrific

than the powder that leached
all color from the flattened
Hiroshima landscape

or the strange gray snow
that fell outside the gates
of Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

10/14/2001

Posted on 10/14/2001
Copyright © 2024 Bruce W Niedt