We will Always Remember

Two Thousand One, Nine Eleven

Two Thousand One, nine eleven

Three thousand plus arrive in heaven

As they pass through the gate,

Thousands more appear in wait.

A bearded man with a stovepipe hat

steps forward saying, "Let's sit, let's chat."

They settle down in seats of clouds

A man named Martin shouts out proud

"I have a dream!" and once he did.

The newcomer says, "Your dream still lives."

Groups of soldiers in blue and gray

others in khaki, and green then say

"We're from Bull Run, Yorktown, the Maine."

The newcomer says, "You died not in vain."

From a man on sticks one could hear

"The only thing we have to fear.."

The newcomer says, "We know the rest,

trust us, sir, we've passed that test."

"Courage doesn't hide in caves,

You can't bury freedom in a grave,"

The newcomer had heard this voice before,

a distinct Yankee twang from Hyannisport shore.

A silence fell within the mist.

Somehow the newcomer knew that this

meant time had come for her to say

what was in the hearts of the five thousand plus that day.

"Back on earth we wrote reports,

watched our children play in sports.

Worked our gardens, sang our songs,

went to church and clipped coupons.

We smiled, we laughed, we cried, we fought.

Unlike you, great we're not."

The tall man in the stovepipe hat

stood and said, "Don't talk like that!

Look at your country, look and see,

you died for freedom, just like me!"

Then, before them all appeared a scene

of rubble streets and twisted beams.

Death, destruction, smole and dust,

and people working just 'cause they must.

Hauling ash, lifting stone,

Knee deep in hell, but not alone!

"Look! Blackman, Whiteman, Brownman, Yellowman

side by side helping their fellow man!"

So said Martin, as he watched the scene

"Even from nightmares, can be born a dream."

Down below three firemen raised

the Colors high into ashen haze.

The soldiers above, when they were alive,

saw it in Iwo Jima in '45

The man on the sticks studied everything closely,

then shared his perceptions on what he saw mostly

"I see pain, I see tears,

I see sorrow--but I don't see fear."

You left behind husbands and wives

daughters and sons, and so many lives

are suffering now because of this wrong,

but look very closely. You're not really gone.

All of those people, even those who've never met you

all of their lives, they'll never forget you.

Don't you see what has happened?

Don't you see what you've done?

You've brought them together, together as one."

With that the man in the stovepipe hat said

"Take my hand." and from there he led

three thousand plus heroes, Newcomers to heaven

on this day, Two thousan one, nine eleven.