Shattered Visions

An artist promised art

in return for our rental one summer, while we were away—

a four-walled mural in our bathroom,

her vision of the lower Manhattan panorama

from high up on our roof.

Two winters later, at the end of the final peaceful year of the millennium,

a rampant kitchen blaze brought firemen

from the nearby stations

to save the day.

Containing the small conflagration,

brave men ate smoke, saved us from homelessness.

To be sure there weren’t rogue flames hiding within,

They broke through wallboard here and there.

The men who would answer the final call

ten months down that long road –

who would be shattered then—

themselves shattered

the sketchy images on one wall

of the Twin Towers.

Looking for fire….

And the day came.

And they found fire.

A bike ride away, smoke and flame--

the whole world crumbling,

glued to the tube,

though I could stand in the open air

and behold the funeral pyre

without a voice over.

I didn’t know of the friends yet,

but faced grim knowledge,

remembrances of those I tested,

in rigorous obstacle courses,

who would later graduate the Fire Academy…

which ones might have died there too
beneath the rubble of world peace?

Dawn struck,

confused, disoriented

where to go, what to feel,

I bought a dozen white roses

and mad-staggered

to the firehouse off Houston on Sixth,

stood outside gaping.

It was too early for lists

or to decide on the proper graphics or

know what names to include…to be finally and fatally sure.

Yet there, surrounded by candles and flowers,

a lone firefighter’s portrait

in a simple frame.

I did not see a name,

but I knew the certainty of such memorials.

Noticed the tall young man

leaning against the building,

pensive, hands in pockets, eyes downcast.

A vigil of one.

I asked him,

“Did many men from this station house die?”

“He did,” nodding at the photo.

“He was my brother.”

Great dams have burst at lesser provocation.

I shattered  into spasms of grief,

embraced him, and—before stumbling back through

the poison air of the day—

thrust the roses into his arms.

I had no words.

I just went away.