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To
Norberto Hernandez
by
Barbara Phillips
Norberto, four days before life lost you,you asked your
mother
to play 'I would Cry But I Have No More Tears' four
times.
On the train to the World Trade Center,perhaps you
searched for peace within
knowing in not knowing the world was spinning into
shadowed cataclysms
between light and darkness where fear taunts courage in
bone wrought
sinews before you went to be what you were,pastry chef at
Windows
On The World, on the 107th floor,where panoramas dressed
mirages
just beneath the hands of dream saturated skies
When madness came costumed in smoked flames, you called
your sister
to say you were fine, and some minutes later you chose to
jump into
the pure void that turned your form of 6' 2", 205
pounds into graceful
mimetic motion which I watched on CNN and asked myself
whether
you chose such flight to lose yourself in creation before
the final exodus
came when you would become a martyr in the memories of a
world
paralysed by words too insubstantial for voices that cry
within witnesses
too far from where you are,yet too close to where you
were
Norberto, you who were nicknamed Bible for your
trustworthiness
know you will be with us forever, and you will remain
true to your
favorite saying - "Together Forever"- in a way
no one could have imagined.
You always said rather than die in a burning building,
you would jump
and you leaped into all our sorrows where you have become
more
than the man in the white coat whose fall was recorded
live so all
nations cannot forget we are one under a skin stretched
too thin
for love trapped by fires beyond boundaries besieged by
our desires.
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