they call it Ground Zero,
but, others say
their chickens just came home to roost.

now, there is a rubble-
   filled
crater on the ground where
the World Trade Center towers
once stood:

the World Series
was turned into a
series of national pep rallies
where what used to be
the 7th inning stretch was reduced
to Black singers
leading baseball fans
singing God Bless America.

at Ground Zero,
there are those who wonder
if there is a God,
while their children ask
who is David
and who is Goliath
in the storyline of this struggle?

American flags are everywhere,
like sun glare--
the person driving the candy apple red
mini-van
who just cut me off
was flying one,
and i pondered those real
American attitudes
    unleashed
when
patriots get behind the wheel.

Americans
conveniently fail to remember
those yesterdays when
European settlers terrorized this continent
in the name of their Christian
    God--
they no longer
glamorize those savage yesterdays
when whole populations
lived in fear of them ...

       September 11, 2001