Cairn Honoring Pan Am
103 in Arlington
Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios
(A gift of the people of Scotland to the people of the United States, the monument is made of 270 blocks of red sandstone quarried from Lockerbie in memory of the 270 people lost in the Pan Am bombing. In the Highland Clans, each man would place a stone in a pile before they fought in a battle. Those who survived the battle returned and removed a stone from the pile. The stones that remained were built into a cairn to honor the dead.)
grief not buried here. only stones stacked.
a cairn. stones carved fit end to end.
Scottish stones. each stone like the other.
laid round. end on end. cloned despair.
stones laid back to back. each a victim.
each like the other. identical stones.
stacked to fit. their world tips over. back.
back and back again. carved stones fit end
to end. fragments of deeds. fragmented love.
mortared together. fragments balanced
end on end. endless dirges of stones.
balanced at edge of sky. each stone a life
ended. shiny. bloody. edges mortared.
back fitting to back. bone to bone. wing
to wing. heart to heart. stones piled
like bones. bombed. broken, exploded.
stars fragment. fall. tip back over back.
gather in cairns. piles. graves. memories.
wings. in rounds back to back. stacked.
sealed by love's mortar. endless bones.
end to end to end to end to end to end.
Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios resides in Mendocino, CA. Her poetry has been featured in such poetry sites as: Ekphrastic Review, Great Weather for Media, Kentucky Review, Form Quarterly , Poetry Quarterly and Poeming Pigeon. Twice nominated for a pushcart prize, her prize-winning chapbook, ‘Special Delivery’ was published by Yellow Chair Press, and her second chapbook, ‘Empty the Ocean with a Thimble,’ by Word Tech Communications. She is a Professor Emerita from American University.