Chris McDonnell

Fifteen decades on

Fifteen haikus after 9/11

Brilliant morning

September sky, crystal blue,

Down-town Manhattan

Elevator up

From street level entrance

Fifty-Second floor.

Water-cooler chat

‘how you doin’ big fella?’

‘see you for some lunch’.

Papered desks and notes

empty trash cans, story told,

evil comes to call.

High impact on North

fireball and instant loss of life

the passage of flame.

Then South is taken

two billows of skyline smoke

and debris falling.

FDNY lose

many crew, their chaplain first

both Towers collapse.

The pile by night-fall

fragments under dust, stacked high

terror’s consequence.

It came home at last

pain upon pain, tear by tear

consequence of fear.

After all was done,

debris cleared and names recorded

water pools flow cool.

Now so much has changed

Uncertain days, dawn and fade

countless lives were lost.

Lover’s lonely beds

photographs for children hang

on apartment walls.

Paper-prayers fell

that Tuesday morning, hands clasped

faces, wide-eyed stares.

Through the siren screams,

the ‘Oh my God’ of panic,

came from opened mouths.

Fifteen mysteries

long, frozen years, broken time

each a decade gone.

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