https://www.911memorial.org/registry/ennioforina/sow

WE

We are the lost voices
that nevermore you’ll hear,
we are the fading shades
of those that won’t come back,
shreds of what once were bodies
in ashes and in pieces,
made by the deadly blow
of a sudden hell’s fire.

 For what the Hell can count.

We are those who jumped off
the broken glass and walls,
hoping our death came quickly
to end the pain so unbearable
of burns and suffocation,
hoping that some angel
would save us just before
reaching the hard stone
down on the ground.

We didn’t care the world
was watching all astonished.

For us the world was ending.

We are the thoughts,
evaporating in incandescent steel,
reaching the sky somewhere.

We are the words unspoken,
the calls we never did
for those we cared so much.

We died like many died and die,
for blinding violence,
in blasts and clouds of dust.

We died and asking why
were we the chosen ones,
to end like this so abruptly.

We missed all the chances
to reach again our loved ones
and shining days ahead.

We are our lost and hidden pathways
of knowledge unknown forever.

We are the cry of shame
for an unjust death
just like for many living beings
killed with harsh contempt.

It’s hard to feel the pain of others
until you try it on yourself
then, on the eternal moment,
of losing what you are
you suddenly realize:

Those who don’t feel
the death of others
are not alive at all.

But now all words are useless,
’cause all the pain has gone
and what you may learn by this
will go with us away
from all the rest of you,
survivors and lost
in this loveless, crazy, world.

Now, all of you people,
whether you watch crying
or cheer about a victory
you’ll keep wandering blind
and blindly keep destroying
until you’ll want to find
the ousted sense of wisdom.

We are this growing smoke
that’s hiding all the feelings
of what is left of us
while the life’s breathing
now isn’t even a sigh.

Soon we’ll disappear,
without a touch or whisper
from all our loved ones,
but in some way we’ll stay
like diamonds in their souls.

And shades of darkness inside
anyone who only knows to hate.

For those who cheered our death
and exulted about a victory
we may well be some smoke now
just raising in the sky,
scattered by the winds of evil,
but smoke more thick and dark
will stay in all the minds and souls
that are always raised
in all the graves of hate.

Ennio Forina 2001