Where Were You?

Memorial Reflecting Pool  at Ground Zero in Manhattan.

Today I watched the memorial service at Ground Zero in New York City, It was very moving. I hope to see it one day. Ten years have gone by since that terrible day. For the first time ever in American history, we were attacked by terrorists from a foreign land. We were under attack.

Where were you when you first heard the news? I had just started my work day at a printing plant when I first heard that a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers in New York City. We thought nothing of it at that time. “Oh a small plane or something has hit the building. It was probably an accident. How much damage can a small plane do to such a huge building?”

As the day progressed and the news changed drastically, we wondered where the next attack would be. It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. Only on this day, unfortunately, more than one shoe dropped. We felt very vulnerable;  like the whole country was under attack.

Our leadership drew us all together in groups to inform us of what was going on. They gave us the option to leave if we wanted to if we wanted to check in with loved ones. In a disaster situation, we always think of our families first. Mine was hundreds of miles away, so I had to rely on those around me in case of an emergency. We were told that security had been beefed up at the plant and we were reminded where to go in the plant, the safe areas, if necessary.

I stayed at the plant. It seemed to be the safest place to be that day. At lunch time, my friend and co-worker, Belinda, and I thought it was safe enough to go to her nearby  apartment to watch the news on her T.V. It didn’t look good. The news just kept getting worse and worse.

America showed what she is made of that day. People helping people. Patriotism flourished. Home after home showed their colors by flying the flag. Volunteers headed for Ground Zero. Boats answered the call in lower Manhattan and managed to evacuate over 500,000 people who had no other way to get out of the area, now virtually blotted out by smoke and dust.

This year I turned to the poets for solace, guidance, and wisdom. Life goes on and our poets always come through for us. Some of the following is sad and dark, but their words ring true even today.

We start with dear Edna St. Vincent Millay, our local heroine and world-wide respected poet. This is a sonnet, a love story of sorts, but it might be how many of those left behind on 911 felt about the special love they lost that day.

Sonnet iii

Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,

And all the flowers that in the springtime grow;

And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow

Rising of the round moon; all throats that sing

The summer through, and each departing wing,

And all the nests that the bared branches show;

And all winds that in any weather blow,

And all the storms that the four seasons bring.

You go no more on your exultant feet

Up paths that only mist and morning knew;

Or watch the wind, or listen to the beat

Of a bird’s wings too high in air to view,--

But you were something more than young and sweet

And fair,--and the long year remembers you.

T.S. Eliot from The Waste Land

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Reluctance

Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods

And over the walls I have wended;

I have climbed the hills of view

And looked at the world, and descended;

I have come by the highway home,

And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,

Save those that the oak is keeping

To ravel them one by one

And let them go scraping and creeping

Out over the crusted snow,

When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,

No longer blown hither and thither;

The last lone aster is gone;

The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;

The heart is still aching to seek,

But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man

Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things,

To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end

Of a love or a season?          

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Day is Done

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

The following poem by Longfellow, about a Civil War soldier, reminds us that many of those in the twin towers were never found. It was the last place they in fact existed on this earth. The memorial site is now, therefore, sacred ground, where they can now rest in peace. The same can be said of the memorials at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

A Nameless Grave

'A soldier of the Union mustered out,'

Is the inscription on an unknown grave
A Nameless Grave

At Newport News, beside the salt-sea wave,
Nameless and dateless; sentinel or scout
Shot down in skirmish, or disastrous rout
Of battle, when the loud artillery drave
Its iron wedges through the ranks of brave
And doomed battalions, storming the redoubt.
Thou unknown hero sleeping by the sea
In thy forgotten grave! with secret shame
I feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn,
When I remember thou hast given for me
All that thou hadst, thy life, thy very name,
And I can give thee nothing in return.

Finally, here are some quotes from Longfellow we should keep in mind as we go forward in America.

“If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

“Look not mournfully into the past, it comes not back again. Wisely improve the present, it is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear and with a manly heart.”

“That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.”

“We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.”

Never forget the lessons of 911.

Thanks for listening.