A funeral procession, a gloomy, wretched day,
Heads hung in mourning, as all to rest, we lay.

Buried in black, pink, red, blue, yellow, white,
Friends and family in agony, because it will never "be alright."

One mother wants answers, “but why did he have to choose you??”
As she places one red rose over her daughter’s gown of blue.

Her father is so lost, his daughter of twenty-seven,
Was murdered by animals, and then taken up to Heaven.

Her friends wear black, as they leisurely walk on by,
Leaving pretty carnations, along with the tears that they cry.

The thick gray headstone, and so it be read,
“Our daughter, forever, we lay her to bed.”

They walk away, weeping, no absolution to be found,
Was she blown to pieces? Did she jump? Is she somewhere underground?

Years will go by, a few, maybe ten,
Family will visit, asking how they’ve all been.

More time will go by, and a stranger will query,
"Now, who was that girl, again? So young, it was eerie.”

Choking on bottled emotions that continue to rage,
We are trapped inside of a morbid war-zone cage.

Barbaric death forced, in an unnatural way,
And the frustrating part? We can't make them pay.

Survivors come to visit, marching quietly on by,
Remembering what they saw, that unimaginable day in the sky.

They kneel at her grave, but they just cannot weep,
At all of the memories they so painstakingly keep.

The smell of burning flesh, bodies hitting the ground,
No human should ever have to endure, such sights, smells or sound.

All cried out, they now look to tomorrow,
Basking in their thankfulness, not in their sorrow.

Grateful for their strength, they take a moment just to ponder,
The police, the dogs, the firemen, their heros, with great, great honor.

Arm in arm smiling, they all sit down in the sun,
Making new memories, for what’s done I’m afraid, is done.

They accept whatever life delivers, so content just to be alive,
No matter what their future hands them now, they were still the ones to survive.

The date of September Eleventh, will be remembered all too well,
As the day that Satan purchased, four one-way tickets from hell.

- In loving memory of Joanne Marie Ahladiotis, Cantor Fitzgerald, WTC, Tower One, 104th Floor