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Sunday, September 12, 2021

Like Snow


 

 NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001
—Breyten Breytenbach, Paris, France

"Then it went dark. Real dark. Like snow." 
                    
             —Words of a Survivor 
 

will the hand endure moving over this paper 

will any poem have enough weight 

to leave a line of flight above the desolate landscape 

ever enough face to lift against death's dark silence 

who will tell today 
 

 
the huge anthill of people remains quiet 

somber and bright but obscure 

as if the brown effluvium of sputtering towers 

sweeps still the skyline with a filthy flag 

who will weep today 
 
 

today images wail for voice behind the eyes 

planes as bombs stuffed with shrapnel of soft bodies 

then the fire inferno flame-flowers from skyscrapers 

human flares like falling angels from the highest floor 

down, down all along shimmering buildings of glass and steel 

fluted in abandoned beauty and fluttering 

weightless and willowy and flame-winged to streamline 

fleeting reflections in the fugitive language of forgetting 

the hellhound of destruction has a red tongue of laughter 
 

 
who will tell and who will count 

gouged eyes do not understand the blue of sky 

through a dismal and chilly nuclear winter 
people stumble people shuffle 

stumble-people shuffle-people worm-white-people 

where lie the faces 

old before their end or their wedding 

grayed in ashes from head to toe 

as if clothed in coats of the snowing knowing of ages 
 

 
beneath rummage and debris rosy corpses move and mumble 

and in East River confidential files and folders float 

with shreds and feathers lacerated human meat 

scorched confetti for the dog's feast 

who will tell tomorrow tomorrow 
 

 
where are the faces 

will the tongue still think 

still pulse its dark lair 

with flamed memory of bliss 

will words still drink oblivion 

will any poem some day ever carry sufficient weight 

to leave the script of scraps recalling fall and forgetting 

 
will death remain quivering in the paper

______________________

—Medusa

For more about Breyton Breytenbach, see www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/miscellaneous-world-literature-biographies/breyten-breytenbach/.

For more about Eric Fischl, go to www.wheatonarts.org/eric-fischl/?gclid=CjwKCAjwyvaJBhBpEiwA8d38vHqNjbo9WWHbI4mabVxDGb18i6T0acFOr-WHHv0-_07dflr8DL42ihoC6kMQAvD_BwE/. For more about his
Tumbling Woman, see below, and go to www.27east.com/arts/the-story-behind-eric-fischls-tumbling-woman-1343663/.

For
Poetry in Response to 9/11: A Resource Guide, go to guides.loc.gov/poetry-of-september-11/.

 

 

 
—Eric Fischl’s Tumbling Woman (Smithsonian):  
remembering those who jumped from the windows


 














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