This is from a 2006 article on the Poetry Foundation site, about the role of poetry in consoling public grief. This comes from a response from Mark Doty (one of several Poet responders). There is a really good essay by Doty on this poem that you can get to here: <link>

You can back out from this point to the other poets and to the main article.

Photograph from September 11th

They jumped from the burning floors—
one, two, a few more,
higher, lower.

The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them
above the earth toward the earth.

Each is still complete,
with a particular face
and blood well hidden.

There’s enough time
for hair to come loose,
for keys and coins
to fall from pockets.

They’re still within the air’s reach,
within the compass of places
that have just now opened.
I can do only two things for them—
describe this flight
and not add a last line.

—Wislawa Szymborska,
translated by Clare Cavanagh and
Stanislaw Baranczk

The thing to be aware of, folks, in case you don't read all the essays OneArt has linked to, is that the people in charge of the World Trade Center memorial would not allow the Szymborska poem to be part of the multimedia section of the memorial.

Thanks for the link, OneArt. Many of the essays were much more nuanced that I thought they would be.

A couple of years ago, I began teaching a class on Sept.11. I presented two poems by Stephen Dunn, one he wrote immediately after 9/11 and one he wrote 2 - 3 years later. The vast difference between them was instructive.

Thanks MA...I was hoping folks would pick up on thebad decision of the memorial folks in not including this poem. Who says poetry isn't powerful?? What were they afraid of?