Ground Zero Poem by ENOCH JOHN

Antigua, Anguilla, St Lucia, Virgin Islands, Guadeloupe and Trinidad
Antilles of azure warm Caribbean Waters
And Antilles of the Americas.
Antilles of the Carnivalesque and marinas with white yachts at rest,
And coral reefs and ports in tranquil waters
Of Tortola, Kingston and Port of Spain,
With suddenness affrighted,
In September.
Stark.Stark reality
Of riveted eyes gaping in disbelief in Port of Spain
At Cable News Network
In September.
Stark.Bold starkness, the images conjure
At Ground Zero.A people ripped apart
As a wild animal rips apart its prey.
Stark. The agony of starkness in this crucible,
Mirrowed in the acute anguish of the innocent,
Whose consummate grief is manifest,
The rhythms of this agonizing cadence becoming their new mantra,
For emblazoned forever on their cheeks is their trepidation,
And neither Jefferson nor Washington could've allayed
The nativity of terror, freedom's antithesis,
Sprouting wildly as branches of trees,
In a concrete jungle of tremulous humanity,
Fatigued by the wear and tear of weariness and hurt,
On that day of infamy with one nation hurting as one man, and
Everywhere, the pungent scent of the dead, nauseating
And frustrating the sanity that struggles to remain,
In a ghastly ghost of a wilderness that hadn't been a wilderness,
In September.
And I heard they returned the following year,
In the empty space, reading an obituary from a Book of Remembrance
In September, like a Sabbath,
And with its heavenly ascent as an axiom,
Sounded a West Indian chorus of condemnation,
Of September.