| Thursday, Sept. 20, 2001 Dear Kate, Joe has a creative side he doesn't express often enough. He draws pretty well, he has great ideas, he can cook! I never thought he could write poetry...until he wrote this: (Untitled) Will the bagpipers play on my funeral day?
Will a sea of blue stretch down this long road?
As Harleys rumble by and choppers thunder overhead
It is the sweet sounds of the bagpipers that I hear instead. All have come here to pay their respects.
To listen to the story of the brave act I did.
Worry not for me because I'll be all right.
It is my wife who needs comfort
Through these long nights--
Who will teach my boy what is to be a man
Who will be there to hold my little girl's hand.
It is my family that needs you now, for I am at rest.
Let it be known that I worked with the best. I did not live the longest of lives, nor one of great wealth.
It is the sacrifice I made that put me high upon this shelf,
Treated as a pauper in life but as a king in death.
All I did was my job like so many before.
So when you go to drink to comfort your way
Remember what it is that I have to say. When you raise your glass in memory of my name
Know you are my brother for you would have done the same.
It is only we who run toward what others run from
Now I run no more, for my work is done. As this wooden vessel carries my body through this sea of blue
Listen for the bagpipers and hear what they play
For it is their sweet music that carries my soul today.
-- ©Sgt. Joseph P. M., NYPD
September 20, 2001 | 
