A dark shadow consumes
all in its wake
It cannot give
what it doesn’t have

Nothing gives nothing
blackness gives no light
Hate, a wrangled tree with
the fruit of violence,
cannot give sweet fruit
of kindness, grace

A shadow drapes
over the innocent and aware
a nation questions
a world wonders

the propensity in man
to dream or destroy
to love or hate

we all have a choice

Shadows of memories
stand where steel crumbled
and heroes sang

and a nation cried

Memories are all that
some people have of
their good-byes which
nobody knew were their
last goodbyes

Daughters and sons,
fathers and mothers,
the left behind still cry

Wounds in healing stitches
but each year memory
bleeds through a painted patch

We all carry a wound
from 9/11 or
pick-your- date-of-a-devastation
that will not be forgotten

Wounds continue, each day
with words and hatred from
souls alone and lashing

out to other human beings
in homes, streets, schools,
next door and across the sea

We are a nation, a world,
a people, alike, still crying,
still wounded, still seeking

meaning, truth, purpose,
with the same red blood,
our hearts bleed for belonging

When Love cries out
in earnest, calling
through each tragedy
to seek a better way,

I dream of the day
when a fire burns
that consumes the hate

when finally we learn
what it means to live
what it means to love.

***

(Linking with d’Verse Poets, where today poets share their words of mourning and survival)