Tuesday, September 11, 2012

September Rain

So here we are, three leap days later, and it's Tuesday again.


SEPTEMBER RAIN

for Dieter M. Gräf

Past autobahn construction sites,
threats

of traffic. Past television
towers

atop Hessian hills. Past
buzzards

soaring between sudden
showers,

kestrels hovering over
prey,

flocks of starlings
descending

into roadside trees. Past a freshly
plowed

field of crows. Through the
cloud

of spray from asphalt. Through
slaps

of rain from overpasses. Past
airplanes

starting and landing over the
skyscrapers

of Frankfurt. Everything standing, even
ruined

medieval castles perched
strategically

on the passing bluffs.
Passed

by a car from Cologne — how the cathedral
withstood

and withstood the air
raids.

The rain
clears;

soon we'll be home, safe as
towers.

— 16-17 September 2001

4 comments:

Mark Granier said...

Enjoyed this, nice upending of the idiom. As Heaney said (in his own 9/11 poem), anything can happen, which is I guess what every poem in this vein ultimately comes down/up to.

Andrew Shields said...

Comes up against, as well.

Mark Granier said...

Yes.

Meryl said...

I got to your blog in a search for curse poems. But this is one of the best 9/11 poems I've seen--thanks.