On 9/11 and a Prayer

[Don Newman]

All I can really say about 9/11 to this very day is that it broke my heart. I'd always had a soft spot for humanity, but it was hardened quite a bit on that day.

I had written a poem years earlier in response to the first Gulf War when we went in to "liberate" Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's Iraqi invasion of that sovereign nation. Yes, the same Saddam who was NOT involved in 9/11 and who did not have weapons of mass destruction on hand when those things were later used in the second Gulf War to justify the US invasion of his sovereign nation.

Originally titled "Prayer for the Children," the poem was for my children, but also sought to reach those young minds which had not yet been corrupted by humanity's failings, and by so doing perhaps help create a world free of want, greed, and war. At the very least the Prayer helped heal my own disappointment at the world my generation was complicit in creating and gave myself some hope for a better day to come. (Remember "my generation" had gone from the 60's & 70's "Peace, Love, Dope" to the 80's & 90's "Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll" to the 00's "WTF, TTYL, ETC, ETC, ETC" and seemed to have lost much of its Hope and Promise along the way.)

At any rate, I guess it was inevitable that I would turn to the poem again to sooth my heartbreak at the insanity of those events which took place on and after 9/11. I suppose at the time the addition of the next to last stanza of the Prayer was to bring it up-to-date, but it is interesting to note that the rest of the poem needed no revision whatsoever for that was how little the world had changed from war to war to war....

Thank you CTI for ALL YOU DO together to help bring about a more just and sane world. You can read the Prayer below:

 

A Prayer

 

I pray that you will never know

A hurt like that within my soul.

A hungry day, a lonely night,

Or ever have to see the sight

Of oil washed upon your shores,

Or the horrible reality of wars.

 

I pray that you won’t have to feel

A desperation that makes you steal,

Or a hopelessness from which you shrug,

“SO WHAT, WHO CARES?!,”

Because you’ve never had a hug.

 

May you never know the aches of heart,

When love has been crushed

And can not start

Again.

 

I pray for you so innocent,

Yearning to experience Life…

That yours won’t have to be

Like some who’ve come before,

 

 

Who've for the dollar shut Heaven’s door

To make a mockery of freewill.

 

May you bring hope and never kill

The joy of peace, the peace of Love.

 

Then never shall you fear the shroud

Of gleaming buildings crashing down

To burning rubble, to a dusty cloud,

Crushed beneath the searing weight

Of humanity’s breath and lifelong hate;

 

Then never shall you fear the shroud

Of a homeless night or a mushroom cloud.

 

Dedicated to all who have suffered the blows of human violence and injustice from time immemorial.

Peace, Love, Hope,...Forever,

Don Newman

[Author-Poet Aberjhani]

Thank you Don for sharing this exceptional remembrance and poemized prayer. Your observation about the lack of change "from war to war to war" is a scary truth to face but your poem balances that fear with persistent hope.

Aberjhani