Who We Are

September 11, 2001

Post by The Rev. Gena Adams-Riley

On the morning of September 11th 2001, I was traveling north toward Washington D.C. on I-395 from our apartment in Alexandria, Virginia.  I wrote a poem in the weeks that followed as I sorted through the experience of watching American Airlines Flight 77 crash into the Pentagon killing 64 people on the plane, 125 people in the Pentagon, and 5 hijackers.   

I accelerate;
move left, the fast lane,
tune in my lifeline, NPR—
Terrorists
Attack
New York City
American Airlines
Towers.
What's this about?

I hear it,
then see it play out before me—
silver capsule
red letters
darting through the sky,
too fast, too low, the wrong way,
sharply veering.

Metal meets concrete,
strikes without warning.
The nightmare of a soldier-
a burst of orange,
cloud of black
gray is swallowed.
A mighty wound,
gaping hollowness
cannot be touched.
Steel, rubber, metal,
grind to a halt.

I'm not alone,
they see it, too.
Hands clutch shaking heads,
people bewildered,
stopped in a place we do not belong.

I stand in the roadway,
reaching.
My heart floods with tears,
my eyes are dry.
I shake with coldness,
my stomach burns.
I circle my car,
there is no safety in this place.

You are with them,
whoever they are,
I cannot know them,
they are gone.
Nameless to me—
mothers
fathers
children
sisters
brothers
lovers.

You call them by name;
call them by name!
Have mercy,
deliver them from evil.
They are dust,
to dust they return.

Give me a balm
to heal my sinsick heart.

- The Rev. Gena D. Adams-Riley, Revised September 2011

Pictured: A steel bench from the Pentagon Memorial to the victims of the 9/11 attacks.

Tags: 911, gena adams-riley, poetry, september 11