The Aberdeen Foundation

HEART SONG

Lofty and prominent in the evening skyline of our lady of liberty's busy city      harbor

Now smoldering rubble of a twisted memorial to some misguided delusion of      utter insanity

Twin Towers of high aspiration, upon their completion were dedicated
     to peace

Lie now but a smoldering reminder of the bitter legacy of war's brutal and      callous ambition

There's a cry across the tunnel to Jersey, Rachel and Muhammad weeping for      our children

As believer and doubter lament with one voice, "My God, why have you      forsaken us?"
* * * * * * *
From the burning carnage of chaos disorder emerge firefighters and police      officers, nurses and longshoremen

Ballplayers and politicians, rabbis, priests and sinners, butchers and bakers,      bankers and thieves

Wealthy capitalists and the broken wretched homeless, stock yard workers
     and stock-exchange traders

Truckloads and boatloads, planeloads and trainloads, relief of supplies and      volunteers pouring in

From great nations and cities and rustic rural farmlands, voices of support and      condolence are heard

Those in the public limelight of entertainment and perception, do what they
     can to ease the pain

And unlike previous catastrophes played out on the great ocean of human
     tears

Such immense outpouring of charity multiplies that supplies and helping hands      are turned away
* * * * * * *
As her native poets sing, ¹ "like a bridge over troubled water", truly "there's a      heart in New York" ²

And more than proud to be an American, for once I am proud of my race called      Human Being. *

DEDICATED TO: The three friends of American poet Mattie Stepanek, who lost their lives in the tragedy of September 11th, 2001.

Credits:

1. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel; The Concert In Central Park (1982).

2. Ibid ("A Heart In New York" by Benny Gallagher and Graham Lyle).

*FootNote: Inspired by eleven-year-old poet Mattie Stepanek, author of the best-selling books Heartsongs and Journey Through Heartsongs, who lost three of his personal friends in the tragedy of September eleventh; although confined by a wheelchair and supported by a ventilator as a result of a rare form of Muscular Dystrophy, Mr. Stepanek remains, in spite of his youth, one of modern America's premier poets and greatest citizens.

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