The Company of Angels

Engine and ladder companies speed to the scene,
Ascend the towers on fire as in a dream
Of Jacob’s angels. This will be the last they’re seen,

Angels of stairwells, while workers file down
From the pitch of disaster, all covered in dust
Like powdered actors playing celestial ghosts.

The survivors struggle with the ghosts in their heads,
Their missing brethren, the shadow-dwelling dead
Who entered the smoke-laden abyss in their stead

And now invade their sleep. The spirits cry aloud
Through surrogates’ dreams to beg the meaning of loss.
The living wake wrestling with their faith in God.

A fireman sleeps with concrete for a pillow,
Wakes with a limp to search again through the rubble
Of bent-steel vaults of Armageddon's cathedral.

Dwarfed by the tabernacle of ruins, Children
Of Dust sift through wreckage. This place of dread is none
Other but the house of God and gate of heaven.

The leaning pillars of the ragged-steel façade
Menace rescue work, but only the dead are found
And this is hell on earth and this is sacred ground.