Christina A. Sharik

AMONG THE RUBBLE

There’s a flag among the rubble;
the rescuers rest on cots –
there was a rabbi giving water-
a doctor taking video shots…

There’s a flag among the rubble
and I realized, suddenly
that I am not afraid of you
nor will I let you get to me…

Oh, “you” may kill me just as well
as you did the other ones;
and you may kill my only child-
or our daughters, or our sons,
but we will prevail in this regard:

We’re not afraid of you
you are evil personified
our faith will get us through.
It does not have to be the Christian faith
that wins this World War Three –

but just the good that people do
when there is some need they see…
There’s a flag among the rubble
where two mighty buildings stood
And I am not afraid of you –

You are evil.
We are good.

©Copyright September 2001 by Christina A. Sharik

ASHAMED

Today I am ashamed.
I must add this to my other list of
feelings, some named
and some unnamed…
We are supposed to be the righteous;
the ones who represent and defend –
the right to practice your religion,
the right to speak your mind,
the rights to earn here, and then spend.

But now, we have some ignorants
who are killing and attacking
people who had nothing to do
with any September 11 hijacking –

An Egyptian storeowner taunted,
killed, and when his murderer was caught,
he was defiant and said, “Sure, arrest me,
and let the terrorists go”;
What Tommyrot!
Why can’t we see that this is what
the real Terrorists wanted?

Every time we kill someone
wrongly; in anger, not in war
“He” laughs at us, at our ignorance,
and wins – just like he thinks
he did before.

This makes me sad.
So sad I feel ashamed
that my fellow Americans
can be so cruel, so stupid
and so mindless as to kill another soul

Just like the ones who killed so many
and tore within our Nation a bloody,
gaping twin towering hole…
a wound that we just widen
when we taunt the Arab child
the Egyptian man, who was a Sikh
the lady in the Pakistani grocery store –
who seems so very mild –
Why are we killing or taunting THEM?
What for? What for?

They came here to get away
from those who “visited” the other day –
They came here to live, to work, to
just live free –
Today I am ashamed of what some of us
now seem to be.