Bound Witness

Behind my shuttered eyes I see
Me standing in a field
Constrained to utter voiceless plea;
Calamity revealed!

My nightclothes let the icy bite
Of wind assault my skin,
Though stings distract not from the sight
That ravishes within.

I hear a cracking horror sound,
Head tilting to the sky
A lone and silent mourner bound
To witness hundreds die

I stand a phantom witness born
Of metaphysic means
To feel their many spirits torn
In echoed frantic screams

A thousand booming thundercracks
Of spiderwebbing ice
Describe the hundred breaking backs
That burn in winter’s vice

But icy flames and billowed smoke
Cannot describe the fear
As others drown in bubbles, choke--
Immobile, this I hear. . .

My silent screams are heard by none
Over the crashing sound,
As tears fall silent one by one
Onto the frigid ground

AWAKEN! frightened, gasp and cry--
But tears a mom can heal,
“It’s just a dream,” she would deny,
“The nightmare isn’t real.”

Yet on the way to school that day,
She pulled the car aside
“A plane has crashed,” a man did say,
“With hundreds trapped inside.”