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Reminiscing Sept 11 Tragedy

Minerva Garcia, Microbiologist

Minerva A. Garcia, MLS, MT (ASCP), MS

Reminiscing on Sept 11 Tragedy?
On Sept 11, 2026
On this Friday – the 25th anniversary
Hard to dismiss as we promised never to forget

America has kept its promise
As the twin towers collapsed
Bringing them down …
The first tower falling

The World Trade Center (WTC)
The financial center of the world
Went down and collapsed by monsters
With their hearts black

It was the South Tower going down at 9:59 AM
Followed by the North Tower at 10:28 AM
The WTC7, came down at 5:20PM
One of time’s saddest of days …

Until this day …
When we think of the WTC
The loss of lives …
The heroic souls giving their life

As we all cried …
For the unbelievable cries-hurts
As aligned. – joined with endless pain
We were glued to our tv screens

As we screamed in disbelief
How did those traitors
Become smarter than us?
By tricking us as we slept!

Not even the CIA, FBI and the smartet of men
caught or glimpsed
Of ever people …
All insane …

Today as we look back …
We all know the date of JFK’s death
His Life came to his end …
Am sure, was one of the darkest of days

I am sure …
Was hard to wake up
As his brain half gone
His wife, Jackie cried

With her pink suit
All stained …
She held her children tight
As she stated “They are killing all the Kennedy’s!”

How fears intense …
I know this is in the past
It’s tragedy like this
We get numb all over again

Sept 11, 2001 …
A day never to forget
There will always be tribute
To keep their lives name alive

Patients died that day …
We promised never to forget
What did I do to commemorate their names?
I recalled working at Beth Israel Medical CTR
… I became numbed

Watching people looking motionless
Walking on First Avenue, New York
Looking more like zombies …
With aches and their cloths gray

With faces continuously motionless …
Am sure, they forgot their names
It was the saddest of days …
As people tugged and ran to hospital’s ER

With love in their heart …
Pain in their faces
And a brain they didn’t know they had
With pictures of their lives

… and the loved one’s
On their hands
With questions …
“Is this person here?”

How to respond …
When survival were few – Too many lives gone …
As the twin towers were both brought down
… now they’re gone

How to respond?
We learned of transportation affected
There were no trains, no buses
No airlines opened …

As all planes seemed not in mid air
Seemed they all disappeared …
All the trains in NYC failed to operate
As the MTA was numb from employees

Walking like endless zombies …
Were they seemed more than dead
People walking in disbelief …
How could this had happened?

I made it my business to write poems
I forwarded to 1199, my union
To Staten Island Advance, the newspaper
It published with the unusual heart
… Ink of a black squid I didn’t write
I have to pause

I ate my pains …
Found through my aching body
Nobody knew anybody that day
We own nothing but to live to appreciate

We as Americans become one …
We all stood tall … In grief and pain and all
We Americans became one
With each and every soul

We prayed until we feel asleep
We awoke, did we smoke?
To calm our hearts that beaded as one
Of blood rushing in to our brains …

We thought we never had …
Without a heart as numbed, it was …
Children of the world
Hope you never witness
Such pain that even that everybody had
… Even today
We are still in pain as we hear their names
I heard of my parish pastor …

A mass for seven of our parishioners
At Sacred heart …
My heart was in such pains
I reached out to each name
… each family’s

Framed poems I gave …
With a ceremony proposed by I
Flowers of roses I arranged
With satin ribbons and by each sides

I was blind from pain just like everyone else
Until this date of 25th anniversary
I get teary eyed …
My brother-in-law Wilson Garcia

Was the color of cement
He died of Sept 11 related illnesses with toxins
With home arrival all in gray
He tried to erase this memory

It was no use … it was too late
He couldn’t this tragedy
It was a reality …
You couldn’t escape in your brain

He took a bath …
To remove this stain
In his heart never the same
He had hurt in his torso that was hermoso

Meaning beautiful …
He grabbed a spoon to eat
He forgot how …
He instead grabbed God

Now You weaken by this happening, Dear God
Just like us … Were you hiding in despair ?
I thought you in the air in the year
… Watching us?

What happened were you asleep
You forgot us?
Lord, our Supreme and guider and protector
Why you forget to protect and come to us?

We all still numb
We felt dumb …
Not to reach those souls
Where did they all go?

Was it Father Mychal Judge?
A Franciscan priest …
Who entered wtih Saint Gabriel together
Leading the way to the gate of heaven

We woke up …
To hear of this tragedy
We all thought was a bad dream in our heads
As steam from our head entered in

We were more than numb
Feeling of dumbness …
No matter how smart you were
We felt that we couldn’t remember our names

It was no use to pretend …
We are brave man and woman
We were effortlessly ashamed
Not to be able to carry pains as families

Thought they would go insane
From endless of pains …
With blows in their heads
They bent their knees asking God

Why do you let this happe?
What happened this day?
Why you walked from us?
Aren’t You supposed to watch over us?

It’s been 25 years
It seems like today
You must wake us up
We’ve been asleep …

How can you cure some hearts?
Start today …
To watch away
Few pains, than some more until you come

Finish all …
Can we feel tall
We became midgets
We rejected Satan and reached out to God

However, we felt He never came
The recovering process was slow
It took a toll ..,
Our children were picked up early from school

We all thought we all need to find a school
To erased our memory
Of one of our darkest if our darkest day
Men joined the ROTC …

To prove Americans always fight back
They’re heroes of the days
Let every mother hold their wombs
In the tombs their children buried

Mothers are not supposed
To bury their children first
It was through love and dedication
With forgiveness by our God

Not to crush nor rush …
As we not able to brush it away
We forgot how to brush our hair
Did we all want to rush and kill these men?

It was through prayers
That God wake us up
His heart was numbed
Like everyone …

He sends His love to all …
To feel tall like the highest mountain
To seek love like the highest peak
Do not feel weak to seek
… we speak His love

Minerva A. Garcia, your Poet