1
the audacity of complacency
on an everyday tuesday morning
the audacity of assumed superiority
this could never happen here
the audacity of confidence
business as usual in an abortive world
it was a clear sky tuesday morning
me, in my safe secure suburban house
anchored by a healthy japanese maple
deep red leaves grow breathe in sunshine and air
i would prepare lessons for my evening classes
late afternoon drive against traffic to lower nyc
how blood red this day of infamy would be
for our U- S -of A pearl harbor in an urban setting
bustling businesses would buckle, knuckle under
on our shores where wall st. & wealth intersected
battery park tri-beca manhattan five boroughs
smoke stench we all fall down
2
margaret doesn’t listen to her supervisor
grabs a colleague by her pocketbook strap
they run and make it to the last elevator
world trade center 102nd floor to safety
the city streets scream dark ashes
mass confusion
the audacity of kindness from first, second
third responders then and now as we honor
praise from a safe distance
character building their birth rite
we all become quick learners on
uneasy terrain reclaimed terra firma
kathy’s mantra that nightmare
morning if i can get to golda’s
i will be safe
telephone calls all day
thank god you teach at night
and were not there i am not brave
3.
ashes no classes triage safety of bmcc
fiterman hall gone six students gone
chambers street highways hosed down
teaching allows passage police
wave me on to hell streets soot laned
twin towers landscape gone
air acrid burning itching eyes
breathing with a mask on
my asthma excerbates
my lessons take on a memoir
component for years after
students write and share where
they were that day
days months years pass and
an articulate polite freshman
let me know that he was
only five when it happened
and so goes the world
we must be the keepers of memory
archival story tellers
communication monuments
to our
new york city
history
4.
always remember where you were
on days that alter the trajectory of history
i stood in front of a grade school timeclock
dismissal time we teacher colleagues wept moaned
president kennedy shot killed in texas
gone gone gone
martin luther king slain cries voices
echoed thru an underground subway station
i was on an escalator held onto the railing tight
5.
we have renewed revitalized reborn a neighborhood
and a city only to be ‘pandemically” challenged
i am an elder a wordsnith a poet mother professor
sister friend mentor always mentee honored by yonkers.
as poet laureate i share this early morning
our river‘s salt on my lips remember
remember remember tell others too young to
remember that we are all meant to be united
y is for our youth o is for onery n new stories to share
keystone city energy renewal safety
safety an elusive word
we have met the enemy
and it is us
until we are all
positive agents of change
i will always see the glass half full
share all that i know
teach until my last raspy breath
wheezes with the stain of 9/11 in my lungs
do we have the audacity to embrace and
be embraced by all