September 11th (and Since)

 

"How are we not part of each other?"

I love the message of this poem, its empathy and truth. Powerful.
 


September 11th - Sharon Olds

On each September eleventh, I think about
the family - the young mother,
the young father, and their small child -
whom my relative killed, with his car, one sunny
day. And when he killed them, as if
stepping on the balsa figures of the creche,
I remembered that we had killed Jesus,
too. And I thought of everyone
killed in our name - without our having been asked.
Today we kneel, we bow down
to the families of September - and to all those
since that September, to whom what we feared
would happen has happened. We kneel to families
everywhere. How are we not part
of each other? It looks as if, someday,
we will all go up in smoke, together,
back to nothing. But look! Out of air,
of water, fire, and earth, we came, and then there
blossomed, from us, love itself,
love in a thousand languages,
each one to die for.