nine the month eleven the day thirteen the years

hot fuel trickled down a building’s spine

twice

crushed lives and complacency

a five-sided base of operations got slammed

a lovely meadow got scarred

ray charles sang in arizona

out of verse sequence

in his eloquence:

“o beautiful

for heroes proved

in liberating strife

who more than selves

their country loved

and mercy more than life…”

george w. bush threw a perfect strike to kick off the d-backs vs. yanks game

it may have been his finest hour

how his back must have itched

then we went to war

dealt a deck of cards with bad guys on them

got quite a few of them

stuck them on the edge of cuba

one group gets taken out

another materializes–isis?

wasn’t she a saturday-morning superheroine?

or is it isil?

they will be airstricken

and they will pay

and others no doubt

will come out of the thin air of the desert and the mountains

but we must do something

we must look at thirteen years of what we have done

and ask: what works?

what heals?

we must become a different creature

we must become a different world

wisdom is elusive

but mercy is in all of us

let us reward the merciful

yes let us defend ourselves

but may we be clever enough to do so

without attacking others

let it be our way

to never give up on mercy