Oy Vey Gevalt

First Responders Carry the Body of Fr. Judge, FDNY chaplain, first recorded victim of 9/11

Flags, Prayers, Suits and Other Empty Things

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,
The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters,
The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers,
Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees,
Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark,

Families will be weeping
Flags will be raised
Flowers will be floated
Bells will ring
Silences will be observed
Bin Laden will be mentioned
2 wars will be justified
Giuliani will look ghostly
Bloomberg will get posey
Bush will look puffy
Obama will get preachy

Jesus will be quoted, but not when he said
"Leave the dead to bury the dead,
Go take care of the living."

And First Responders will be thanked
again and again and again
Somebody might even say to them,
"Sorry you couldn't be with us today."

Zadroga will not be mentioned
Lancet will not be mentioned
The event will be cancer-free and child-safe.
It all will go down like warm junk food.

3,000 remembered, 3,000 forgotten,
3,000 honoured, 3,000 betrayed.
The media math will work it all out
To Zero. To Absolute Zero.
Left staring into a pit of zero.

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

 The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

 The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

T.S. Eliot, East Coker