9/11 2001 a morning like no other

All Poems Written By Golda Solomon. All Poems are Copyrighted and may not be used without written permission of Golda Solomon/JazzJaunts

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