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Ash

(11 September 2020)

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Today is bright with gray

In my part

A good, sad color for remembering

Thousands lost, then hundreds

More in first-responding

And millions to the nation for

The grieving

A holocaust must happen now and then,

It seems

Babel, Rome to the Goths

Constantinople to the Christians

Germany to the Jews

Lockerbie

And all the despotisms that have set

Fire to nations

And for a time burned ours,

Though we have to speak to freedom, now

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We have to know

The idea matters

Of democracy

Over agenda

The vote over manipulations

Free-to-choose over robbing choices

From us

And then there are the harder notions

Love over hate

Forgiveness over condemnation

Though I struggle with that last shade, too,

Wishing wanton killers

All to hell

While me and mine

And victims

Go to paradise

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The good Muslim wasn’t there

To kill the Christians, Jews, Muslims

Hindus, Buddhists, Jainists, and all who take the

Way

Agnostics and atheists

Belief or lack thereof was not a standard

Everyone was worthy

To be killed

The only thing of value to the killers

A notion of terror

Destroy the enemy

Without a real plan for what is next

Since the aim has no success

With which to deal

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The main thing for us now

Is knowing the dead

To take those on the wrong side

Of anger

To place them inside good, quiet parts

Of Earth

In New York, Pennsylvania

Washington, D.C.

And all the family and the military plots

Required in so many places

To read words over these

And offer prayers

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Terrorism is its own failure

We are free to think on better things

A purer world

Filtered like our water

And our better thoughts

With restraint, awareness,

And love, all love

In stronger, wiser forms

Certainly than they

Who went without

Picked up the devil’s way

With unearthly explosions

Without a thought

The brain shellacked with scorn

And counting people

Like matchsticks,

Too ready to burn

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Though death is complicated

Murder, more so

And those of us in sunshine

Have to learn

Yes, certainly remember

Be smarter for the future

That arrives each day

Becomes the present

In which we clump the ash

Plant it, hope for

Fine returns

In crops and beauty

Sustenance that will destroy

Sin’s purpose

Hate’s agenda

Turn over like the soil

On which we stand

And where those of us

Still here—and we are here—

Must grow

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coda

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There have fires elsewhere

Many parts burn now

Inside the head

And through our hearts

Piercing the abdomen

On which our other organs sit

We should not forget

The hungry and the powerless

Who have food and will withheld

All the rescuing required

God and our better parts

Bless them and keep them

All the rescuers

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C L Couch

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Photo by Ben Lei on Unsplash

9/11 Memorial, New York City, USA

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