Epilogue: In Memory of the Ghosts at Ground Zero

A tribute to the fallen innocents

20 years ago seems like yesterday. And, I remember waking the morning of 9/11 to the surreal nightmare of smoke and death in the air being broadcasted to the entire world, fearing for the mortality of folks I didn't even know jumping from windows into the bellows of a tragic death waiting for them below, as the twin towers were ignited by two kamikaze terrorist planes and toppled like monolithic matchsticks engulfed by flames.

Now, wandering — as I wonder about the well-being of not just New York but the world in the COVID era —are the echoes of souls crying out to be saved still from beneath a cloak of chalky ash. And, no matter how hard I try to wipe this atrocity from my memory it stays alive in the vibe of ghosts meandering the streets of New York — lost souls lingering at ground zero, looking for their homes, captive between worlds in the ruins of an American monstrosity buried in the burden of their last moments twenty years ago. Some never looked to the light of the world, because they could not fathom the truth of its glow. Now, they walk around in a daze with no sense of time, as that moment infinitely loops and the words “Help Me!” backed by a choir of disparate voices in prayer drown out their last conscious thoughts and meditations.

Still, there are ghosts wandering the streets of New York. It seems like only yesterday a policeman covered with dust was seen to be walking past a group of first responders only to disappear into the night, later identified as some of those missing since that lurid day, their photos posted on billboards and placed in Times Square next to the American flag, candles and flowers, never to be forgotten. Yes, there are ghosts, but we need to let them go, soul by soul, so we can go on living and continue in the good fight of life, because that’s what they would've done for us.

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2021 Michael Hall is a poet and a creative, who is the creator and curator of The Bazaar of the Bizarre and a submissions editor for The POM, living in Illinois, also writing in association with Lingua: Ex Libris Life, because as Albert Camus said, “to create is to live twice”; and the W.A.V.E. Kollectiv, because We Are the Voice(s) of Expression versus oppression and the powers that be…by any dreams necessary/:-)