Two years past the day America groaned
The day two towers standing high and proud
Dissolved in dusky dust and paper cloud:
We’re still exhuming victims’ hallowed bones,
Two years since the world their sympathy loaned
When our nation’s leaders lusty vengeance vowed
And draped the Taliban in fiery shroud:
Our wound still bleeding now becomes a touchstone.
And yet we’re fractured as to what it means:
A weakness of moral and political will?
Or lack of shame for how we’re seen in the world?
Unsteady foreign policy careens:
Invade Iraq for weapons Saddam has squirreled
Away; ignore Osama who wrought our hell . . .
As bloody rags adorn our well-known wealth
The Warfare doctrine harms the Republic’s health.
Ernest
Cardenas
San
Francisco
S:
November 10, 2003
F:
January 7, 2004