top of page

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.


Copyright ©2020  All Rights Reserved


bottom of page