O Beautiful for Heroes Proved

The day the towers came down
Will long be remembered
For me it still seems surreal
I had purchased a bookcase
Just home from the store
Turned the television on to entertain the littles
While I lugged it inside
And began the assembly

Their program was interrupted—
I stood in the living room
Aghast
Two towers
Two planes
Two billows of smoke
Two unforgiving minutes
Where we all forgot to breathe

People scrambled out of doors onto the sidewalk
And were guided to a safe perimeter
Where someone took attendance
Many managed to escape
But thousands more remained trapped inside
And then the unthinkable happened—
Weakened by the damage
The towers crumbled
First one
And then the other

People went to work that day
Never dreaming they would not return home
Heroes entered the building
Well aware they might not come back out
Some did
And they made a difference
Those who did not
Made a difference too

In another state
Another plane was on course for
Another building
This time the heroes were not on the ground
But on the plane
Unable to completely overtake the winged missile
They diverted and crashed it
In a remote place where no one else could be hurt
They gave their own lives
To save the lives of others

Our enemies thought they could hurt us
By striking our innocents
Our unguarded
Our civilian workers
Perhaps they thought we would be
Too hurt to retaliate
Too weak to fight back
But they thought wrong
We are still
The land of the free
And the home of the brave
America is beautiful
For our heroes proved that
Liberty is worth far more than life