A poem which is worth a thousand pictures

I don't care much for ephemeredes.
I'd rather care for memories and feelings, not for events.
Nourishing and cherishing them whenever my mind and heart say so is my way of paying homage and tribute to all those thousands and thousands of anonymous people who leave this world in the most absurd way.
Five years ago, on that day, I had gone home for lunch.
A meeting had ended sooner than I thought it would.
I took the tray to the living‑room to watch the news.
The first aircraft crashed into one of the towers.
In shock, only a few minutes later, I was bound to witness the second crash live.
And then the symbol of the whole tragedy yet to unfold became carved in my mind forever, as that man grotesquely fell down from the sky over Manhattan.
This is what absurd death always looks like.
Grotesque.
Anywhere.

For the Falling Man

by Annie Farnsworth

I see you again and again
tumbling out of the sky,
in your slate-grey suit and pressed white shirt.
At first I thought you were debris
from the explosion, maybe gray plaster wall
or fuselage but then I realized
that people were leaping.
I know who you are,
I know there's more to you than just this image
on the news, this rag doll plummeting –
I know you were someone's lover, husband,
daddy. Last night you read stories
to your children, tucked them in, then curled into sleep
next to your wife. Perhaps there was small
sleepy talk of the future. Then, before your morning coffee had cooled
you'd come to this; a choice between fire
or falling.
How feeble these words, billowing
in this aftermath, how ineffectual
this utterance of sorrow. We can see plainly
it's hopeless, even as the words trail from our mouths –
but we can't help ourselves – how I wish
we could trade them for something
that could really have caught you.

R.I.P.