We the people of New York, September 11^th 2001

--America's traders, famed for our greed--

Left for work as we had always done.

"Business as usual," was our creed; on our bills we wrote, "In God we trust."

On Black Tuesday, innocent, we died.

Ashes to ashes.

Dust to dust.

Lovers join hands and jump into the sky

A hundred stories straight down we leap.

We are better than those who want us to die.

May the Lord of mercy look on and weep.

We the people of America--

"Through the valley of the shadow of death we walk."

Where were you when the first plane hit? The second struck us out of the blue.

We video-taped it a hundred ways, watched it till we were sick for shock.

When the third plane hit, it was a death-knell.

But when we heard of the fourth, we knew

That all our talk was just paper and smoke

Billowing out as the Trade Towers fell.

Grim old Gotham steeped in sin?

The Great Satan's own Big Apple? "Hey--

You don't know squat! Go try again."

"New York is the City of Heroes today."

A building falls. A building falls.

The small still voices of the last cell-calls

Fade into yesterday's news, and we . . . do we hear the lessons of history?

"God is man helping man," is what we say.

"Stand up and be counted," is what we write.

We the people of the free world . . .

We watch. And pray. We wait. And fight.

(While in Palestine the children cheer.

"Forgive them. They know not what they are.")

And the Lord of all nations looks down on the dead.

"I have a green flag. Who dipped it in red?

"Those who serve and protect-- they are my own.

"The innocent dead-- I bring them home.

But their killers are Islam's enemy.

They did not submit. They are not with Me."

. . . When the last ledger shuts and the bill comes due

Those who did this must answer to You.

Written from Canada after 9/11

And go here for Nicolas' Millennium bios, which have been updated in tribute to the deaths of 9/11.