3,000 Souls By C.A. Butts

3,000 Souls & 8 million lives

a prayer for New York City after 9/11

By Carolyn A. Butts

The ruins are still burning,

souls lie unsettled buried within a man made womb

of brick, mortar and ash

the grief too deep to comprehend

we keep moving, each step unsteady

in a city turned upside down from mourning

people who dissolved in mid-sentence

or leapt into nothingness right before our eyes

tomorrow seems further away in these times,

not promised

pray for the living and dead

let them join hands and walk to higher ground

there is a future in the distance

a place where dust and tears begin a new life cycle

for 3,000 souls and 8 million lives

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Carolyn Butts has been writing poetry and prose since she was ten years old. Extremely shy as a child, she saw writing as a way of communicating and expressing herself. It was a way out of her shell. Carolyn explains, "I used to be so shy that I had one best friend and she would ask the teachers if I could use the bathroom because I was so afraid of raising my voice and speaking in public. I was the kid who sat in the back or front of the class and never said a word. But I heard all." Since then Carolyn has shed her shyness and published African Voices Magazine, a NY based literary magazine which has featured the work of many established and upcoming writers and visual artists. Carolyn is also working on her own poetic debut, "God's Pen." check her website www.carolynabutts.com or www.africanvoices.com.

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update 3 August 2008