Megan's Song - Ringlets in your Hair
Read to you at bedtime moments we would share
Till your eyes got heavy and i left you sleeping there
Later on I’d check to see you sleeping dreaming there
Till I could see your breathing neath ringlets in your hair
Woke you in the morning you pick out what to wear
Your breakfast is ready i tied a ribbon in your hair
We walked to school together i left you safely there
Rings on your fingers and ringlets in your hair
A big girl now we talked one night it was September 10
Next day you walked to school alone - and two planes did descend
Into the towers 100 yards from you and your school
i hurried down to start my searchthrough the ash and fumes
They're loading boats with anyone who could not make the bridge
Some stayed to search for friends and kin or all remaining kids
I still don't know where you are, I can't leave till I know
If you made it safety out, or wandering here below
The south tower has collapsed now I feel the pelting sand
The sky is black the phones are dead is this the way it ends
i found a student in the haze, I don't know how he knew
About a red-haired girl after just 3 days at school
He said: "rings on her fingers ringlets in her hair"
He pointed to a broken door, "I think you'll find her there"
I found you in the morning sitting, smiling there
With broken glass around you and ringlets in your hair
A 9/11 Blues
A late summer morn so severely clear thunder met my ears
Fire and death ½ a mile from home and my eyes confirmed my fears
A voice of fright from my phoning wife it’s down near our Megan’s school
So off I fled to find my child in these 9/11 Blues
Through disbelief and denial - I kept my focus clear
Go down and find my youngest child - less it get worse down there
I passed by displaced workers, staring numbly at the sky
At the ones, who'd rather face the fire, chose to jump and die
Life and death decisions by the minute, by the hour
To evacuate two high schools and remaining office towers
We emptied into Battery Park where our loved ones might be found
Till the fleeing birds, and a wall of smoke, meant the south tower had come down
The black rain fell from a man-made hell melted bones and steel
No time to comprehend our fear or fathom what was real
I found grace in many there that day , kindness and courage too
As New York bore it’s baptism of fire and these 9/11 Blues
The world we knew was changing, right before our eyes
I can taste a bit of the pain and loss of loved ones left behind
My daughter walked to school that day and her class room held the view
100 yards from the falling chars in these 9/11 Blues
I have come to think that bravery is but a presence of the mind
Not courage to search for those you love, but to fear they be left behind
But what about these guardians walking bravely to the fire
Who for the sake of strangers fate, showed willingness to die
So I glimpsed a look in their selfless book of why they do what they do
As I finally found my red-haired child in these 9/11 Blues
My mind now filled with numbness as my hope of hopes came true
And while in that place of brief respite, the second tower blew
But the western wind was kind for now, for the fires still burned true
Fore the sun now bright was an eyrie sight in these 9/11 Blues
From Vesey Street, to Arthur Kill, a procession daily made
To carry away our neighbors, and friends we lost that day
From my bedroom I saw past the West St. fence the lights of red and blue
Where from Crane, to Truck, to floating barge, they passed through the ashen dew
The hardest part was to pass each day the pictures of the dead
Hung by kin and co-workers in hopeful, fearful dread
Each photo is a fading star in the hazy harbor hue
As their souls took flight in the New York night from these 9/11 Blues
They will soon be paving over that scarred and pitted road
That I walk each night 'neath the bright flood lights where iron and ash had flowed
As Afghan Hills recoil and quake , I keep a vigil here for you
As the dead recede from the air we breathe and these 9/11 Blues