9/12 Poem by Jim Yerman

9/11/2001
a day filled with sorrow, filled with anger…filled with regret
9/11/2001
A day many of us will ever forget…

For that is the moment our world lost its innocence…
So many tragedies inflicted that day…
And we knew the heartache we all were feeling…
Neither our tears…nor the passage of time…could wash away.

But as horrific as 9/11 was for all of us
There's a subject into which I'd like to delve…
It's not what occurred to cloud the beauty that day…
It's what happened…beginning 9/12

9/12 we came together as one country…
One country for all the world to see….
No divisions, no discord, no disharmony…
one people…united through tragedy.

9/12 reminded us how fragile is life
How capricious and fickle is Fate…
We once again learned that life is too short
And we have no time to loathe, scorn…or hate.

It's been 16 years since the towers fell
A day catastrophic and misbegotten…
But as I look around our country today
I wonder if some of it's lessons have been forgotten…

We have allowed hate to perch in our country
We are inflicting tragedies in what we do and what we say
We are divided and we are allowing that hate
To cloud all our beautiful days…

I hope we bring back togetherness and love
I hope hate we one day can shelve…
Perhaps just as we did 16 years ago
We can begin again…today…on 9/12.