Rank upon rank of lights,
gleaming in the night like strands of diamonds,
carefully arranged in ordered rows by
a proud master jeweler.

Humming with people, busy at their work;
“Just work!” Perhaps, but careful, constant work
kindles and keeps a dream’s light glowing in
one’s heart, and in time gives it solid form.
And dreams can kindle other dreams in
other hearts, light answering to light,
life after life made brighter.

Thus rose the mighty skyline
all around, and thus the towers themselves;
built by, and built for, dreamers, who could keep
their dreams alight, and, as the metal, stone,
and glass were thrown higher and ever higher
into the sky, rejoice as they took shape.

Evil comes, killing a lovely morning,
screaming out of the sky, flashing twin knives,
unnatural weapons, filled with stolen lives.
They strike. The wounded towers now bleed smoke
and fangs of flame that race like hellish poison,
tearing at their steel. Sadly the twins falter
and fall, weeping tears of splintered glass and
metal, floor smashing into floor, their strength
and gladness crumbling into smoke and ruin
as they plunge downward, taking with them lives;
so many precious souls, that vanish, with
their dreams, their strength and gladness, love, and tears,
leaving lonely bits of paper flying
in the gray, choking dust that rolls like waves
of surging water down the streets, to whisper
mournfully of those destroyed.

The skyline
now is wounded; a gash of emptiness
where once the towers stood echoes the wounds
in hearts and lives.

But God still reigns; He steers all things to suit
His purpose, even in this horror, and
has promised to one day share that purpose
with us, speaking face to face. He also
is never neutral between fear and freedom,
good and evil, and would have us fight
evil with the last atom of our strength.

Take courage from the courage of all those:

Who fought the toxic smoke, the killing breath
of the twin ravening, snarling infernos,
to save all whom they could; who faced twin
hells whose slashing fire-claws brought the towers
thundering down, rather than leave a comrade.

Who wrenched another weapon from the hand
of evil, choosing to face their own fiery
death, rather than risk other lives.

Who dealt with grief and horror day by day,
sifting through each scrap of the twisted pile
of wreckage, a long-smoldering mass grave,
hoping to find some trace of those who died.

So may we truly honor
the lives lost that day, in Pennsylvania,
in the Pentagon, in the twin cities
in the City, in the sky.