That Was A Fine September Day

That Was A Fine September Day

That was a fine September day;

A blue sky clearer than a bell

Whilst we saw from so far away

A happening too hard to tell.

The tower downed as in its wake

A pillar rose of smoke instead

And off a rooftop we would take

In what might ever lie ahead.

“It’s too depressing!” said a friend

Aware of people he knew there;

Yet I was wondering, to what end?

Will it at last make men aware

Of what they’re really up against

Once any news of it is aired:

Should not the nation be incensed,

And war be finally declared?

Meanwhile in those ensuing days

I looked around unhappily

And saw amidst the settled haze

An absence of men’s clarity.

The country was at odds inside

It so refused to face the fact;

Into its factions would subside

That did anything but react.

Although the nation was at war

Its will to act immobilized,

As what it all had happened for

Was totally unrecognized;

And like some giant in her sleep

Uneasily, awhile, we stirred,

And rolled over in slumber deep,

Imagining nothing occurred,

We made no more of what it was

Than of a blip upon a screen;

To miss the moment shown to us

As though it hadn’t ever been.