8:42, For The Victims

Scenes that test credulity
Etched into our memory,
In wide-eyed shock, they slowly stand,
Oblivious to the glass and sand,
To run or watch they can’t decide,
Unaware, the rising tide
Of death and pain, some can’t escape,
Fall hundred stories to their fate
Of certain death on dusty streets,
So much dreamed still incomplete,
While others rushing from the flames
That trap within the metal frame
100 innocents entombed in steel,
Tortured questions fire does seal,
Welded metal warped to knots
A fabric witness that has caught
A gleaming symbol, nation’s pride,
Now tarnished by the tears we’ve cried
And blood that fed a wicked lust
For death, that now untimely thrust
Myriad to an early end,
A coward’s failure to unbend
The strength we hold to hope and dream
Beyond the smoke and dust that seem
To clutch the sun, the pure and right,
To break our step, remove the light,
That never dims, but shines the more,
Gleaming to the farthest shore,
If the memory with us stays,
The awful horror of this day
Through the deadly skies of blue
On Tuesday morning 8:42.