Indelible Footprints - by Martha Fernandez

This is a translation of a Spanish poem by Martha Fernandez written twenty years ago during the terrorist attack on 9/11.  The original version can be viewed here.  

As New York City began to wake, its people arriving early and ready to work, they would never think that they would lose their spouses, children, and homes that day.

It would be, the final goodbye, the early departures, the breakfast, the bed, the cell phone, the car, everything would be immobile on that fatal day.

The innocent reviewing their daily tasks, greeting their companions as they came, little sips of coffee hurried in between the computer strokes, without knowing that their lives would end that day.

As the clock marked the fatal hour that would leave behind traces of destruction, one that would take the lives of so many, robbing families of brothers, parents, children with no illusion of what occurred.

The first explosion of the terrorist driven plane, for all the bystanders outside to feel the horror, death and pain. Screams, moans, filled that huge building, some focused on helping while others communicated through their cell phones with those relatives who were far away.

Only minutes before another plane would implode into the second building, the elevators failing, the suffocation overwhelming the people’s senses, making it difficult to navigate the twisted steel to reach the goal of their escape. While terrified others ran down the stairs, running over whoever their footsteps met.

The few who fled, while some carried strangers on their shoulders, through the exits full of debris that would soon become.

The flames that appeared, engulfing a place reminiscent of hell, with sirens glaring of the first that would come down, cascades of black smoke, glass, shattered walls and steel, forcing women and men who lacked hope and full of despair driven to commit suicide in the madness that appeared.

The rush of doctors and nurses, the sirens of the firefighters, the police, and the press, wanting to help all. Even though everyone gave everything they could, they were overwhelmed by the intensity of it all.

And so it was, that one could only find the corpses left behind amongst the mutilated remains of others in this sinister place. Heavy equipment brought in together, with big trucks to begin the task of endless months, of the many workers drenched in sweat, to uncover the answer to this dark affair.

The rescue dogs brought in from different places, beautiful animals trained to sniff, would look in the rubble for trapped people until their paws bled and burned, but that would not prevent them from continuing their mission of finding the solution to the problem at hand.

The rest burned to ashes leaving no trace, marching to the stars that will be forever inhabited. Leaving only memories due to their sudden departure taking with them the smiles of those that remained.