Antigua, Anguilla, St Lucia, Virgin Islands, Guadeloupe and Trinidad <br />Antilles of azure warm Caribbean Waters <br />And Antilles of the Americas. <br />Antilles of the Carnivalesque and marinas with white yachts at rest, <br />And coral reefs and ports in tranquil waters <br />Of Tortola, Kingston and Port of Spain, <br />With suddenness affrighted, <br />In September. <br />Stark.Stark reality <br />Of riveted eyes gaping in disbelief in Port of Spain <br />At Cable News Network <br />In September. <br />Stark.Bold starkness, the images conjure <br />At Ground Zero.A people ripped apart <br />As a wild animal rips apart its prey. <br />Stark. The agony of starkness in this crucible, <br />Mirrowed in the acute anguish of the innocent, <br />Whose consummate grief is manifest, <br />The rhythms of this agonizing cadence becoming their new mantra, <br />For emblazoned forever on their cheeks is their trepidation, <br />And neither Jefferson nor Washington could've allayed <br />The nativity of terror, freedom's antithesis, <br />Sprouting wildly as branches of trees, <br />In a concrete jungle of tremulous humanity, <br />Fatigued by the wear and tear of weariness and hurt, <br />On that day of infamy with one nation hurting as one man, and <br />Everywhere, the pungent scent of the dead, nauseating <br />And frustrating the sanity that struggles to remain, <br />In a ghastly ghost of a wilderness that hadn't been a wilderness, <br />In September. <br />And I heard they returned the following year, <br />In the empty space, reading an obituary from a Book of Remembrance <br />In September, like a Sabbath, <br />And with its heavenly ascent as an axiom, <br />Sounded a West Indian chorus of condemnation, <br />Of September.<br /><br />ENOCH JOHN<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ground-zero-5/
