Blue ( The Jumpers)
On 11 September 2001, after the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York had been hit by two hijacked airplanes, approximately two hundred people trapped in the burning towers jumped out of windows from as high up as the 105th floor.
It is said that they fluttered like leaves
on their long way down,
some extending their arms as they leaped:
hopeless Christs without crucifixes,
while others tumbled out
like torn rag dolls.
A quick choice:
sky or fire,
blue or red.
They chose blue.
How many times had they seen the sky
dark with night and storms
pale with sunrise
but always favouring the bluest skies.
They didn’t know that one day
such a sky would refuse them help.
That day’s clear sky
took them into its safe sunshine
but did nothing.
They thought there would be no rain
that sunny September Tuesday,
not knowing that their own arms and legs
would fall heavily
in a sad rain on that their final
blue morning.
I imagine that as they fell
through all that sky
they mistook the nearby smoke’s
huge darkness for sleep
and expected to wake up.
Then
they ran out of sky.