Remembering 9.11

the solace I was hoping to find in the sanctity of dinner at home on Friday night, was broken by the regular rounds of the roar of the jet fights passing overhead in regulation with the presidential visit.

And the sun shines again. Never had I thought would the resuming sound of commercial flights passing above be so welcome. The noise was for once comforting. Because for days our state of emergency required the skies to remain arrested in their police state.

It is too early in our mourning to be proud.
It is easy to feel mad at a distance,
And misery when all too close.
I am not angry.
Anger is for those ignorant of who has committed this heinous crime,
caused this mass confusion as to who hath created the illusion of the evil mind.
The time will come when the enigma of that enemy is undone.
But not for now.
For now - a deep, deep sadness rightly runs through.
It is some of the greatest grief man has tolled.
And if history is to be written
It should not be for those we scorn,
But for those to be remembered,
for those whom we mourn.
This will be the day that all the weight of the world fell upon every man's shoulders'
And those of its children upon those of every woman.
When men cried for seven days and seven nights,
and women carried them through.
When wonders of the world
fell to evil deed.
When unfathomable and perpetual terror
planted its bitter seed.
The day the earth stood still
to leave its till rattled
to rake an embattled will,
and sow an atrocious weed.
And we will overcome
Perhaps not tomorrow, nor may it be soon
But we will overcome…

This morning's Daily News headlines:
Flyers Created A City Shrine For Lost Lives

"The flyers, just about all of them white, some with color, photographs on them, some in black and white, are everywhere on 26th Street, starting with the windows of the Staples store at Park Avenue and stretching all the way to the walls of the old 69th Regiment Armory, the victims information center that has become a cathedral for lost souls."

I work at on 26th Street at Park Avenue. At lunch I went over to view what I had previously seen only as a scattering around my office.. The hundreds, if not thousands, of signs of mourning now cover several walls of all the surrounding buildings to the Armory; they sprawl like ivy, each leaf a prayer of hope for someone lost. There are now four or five city blocks of these makeshift memorials and they seem to be growing exponentially.

We are quickly becoming the City of Missing Persons.
Every light poll, bus stall, and barren wall
Is now posted with fliers holding up hope, batting down denial.
The sight of each row of teeth set in a smile— is harrowing.
These last pictures of loved ones lost, wanting to be found,
are bound to etch pain further into each witnesses' heart.
Your own teeth grit with each passing of a portrait in despair.
The only solace being that they have been heaven sent,
even if evil have sent them there.
No longer do we need to cross into divinity to know how it is to be forsaken.
for each sheet of bitter memory, signifies another part of humanity which has been taken…
and places darkness in its place.

Rain and administration have washed away the thousands of missing person posters from the Armory Building which once housed the reporting center for affected families. Now it has been moved uptown and the station has transitioned into the place to go to register for death certificates.

Hundreds of posters still remain hung on the surrounding walls of adjacent buildings. There is also a prominent wall on the side of the Staples store shielded by the scaffolding which had been erected prior to "9/11." Underneath the planks and the metal pipes a new and harrowing tribute has been hung next to worn portraits and spilled wax. It is a long chain of a hundred or so multicolored construction paper rings, each bearing the name of a lost loved one inscribed by what is undoubtedly a different child's hand.

The fact that those who have died are memorialized in such a fashion is sad enough, but to have to expose young children to this tragedy and explain our mortality in such a way is grief of much greater weight.

I don't remember when I first learned about death, and have been fortunate enough not to have lost someone close, yet. But yet, I am plagued with empathy.

It seems that I will not have reached the depth of my sorrow until I have shed a tristful tear for each lost soul.

It appears that things are getting back to normal, for unscrupulous corporate America is taking advantage of our fascination with tragedy by publishing dozens of 9/11 pictorials. As almost uneasy as I feel about the ugly commercial venture I admittedly have glanced through a few in the check-out line (where they strategic place these books to prey on people who in a hurry do not have time to think about a whimsical purchase prompted by a swell of emotion). And, after some reflection thought perhaps this might prove a worthwhile exception to my otherwise opposition to such a frivolous purchase. My primary personal justification, is the universal feeling that we should "never forget." If there is any single feeling that I have accepted makes me no different from the less-discriminate masses, it is this one sentiment that we should not allow this atrocious deed fade into the background of our lives, especially since we are fortunate enough just to be alive.

9.11
9.14
5.02
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8.26
9.11.03