9/11: Behind the Veil

Nothing stops anymore

Rolling news

24-hour cities

A year-round tan

Strawberries in December

Nothing has to stop

And we like it that way

The Simpsons will always be with us

Along with red pillar boxes

But what is it like

When everything stops at once

Forever

What is it like

On the other side of the veil

Tonight I stay up late

And watch yet another documentary

About two towers

Of unequal stature

That stood, close and patient

Like the betrothed

on a sugar-coated island

Waiting for their big moment

It came on a bright blue morning

Fresh as America’s smile

First the big bang

The flash

Then the paper

All the paper

Floating down

Filling the streets

The ticker tape of terror

Screams and tears and looking

Up from sidewalks

High above, the unknowable aftermath

Newly-precious, dear strangers

Beneath a shroud

Of glass and steel

As firefighters climbed to them

In choked, sweating stairwells

Downtown rushing like a ripped ants’ nest

The faces and voices of a globe

Drawn to this sleepless city

Over centuries

Over oceans

To raise its girders

And talk its trash

And do its business

And write its myth

Watching it all rippling down

A slo-mo shower

Of flapping forms

Some falling faster

And hitting harder

Passing beyond the veil

When the big anniversaries come

We wonder and we think

Try to remember the lessons

The conclusions that were meant to be drawn

The answers in the rubble

Many myths died that day

Amongst the shredded concrete and flesh

The story of freedom

America’s own religion

Magnetic through the eras

Proclaimed for all humanity

Turned out to be one belief

Squaring up to another

In a storm of historical debris

What did we learn?

Some things do stop

And some continue

War will always be with us

But mostly with them

And that’s how we prefer it

Happy to be insulated

Much easier to watch Bart and Marge

Than do the mathematics of death

And reach out to those in the crossfire

The female, the young, the old and sick

Tonight I stay up

For one documentary more

Stuck like a moth to the screen of history

Because there is no end to this

Many films

Many interviews

Many opinions

Many words

And always a huge, deafening silence

From behind the veil

Tom George 2026