...September mourn

accounts of that day always comment on the beauty and clarity...
of that morning in New York City, Tuesday, September, 11, 2001...
a last moment of beauty and clarity...
in a world that would be thrust into violence and death...
gallantry and courage... and horrendous loss...



here...in NOCal, I was jolted awake, around 5:30 AM, PDT...
when I realized that my usual AM radio station...
was doing "national news" instead of the normal banter...

the first plane had "hit" the Towers...

by the time school started... [7:40 AM, PDT]
the news was worsening...
we sat listening to the radio in my classroom...
and as I glanced at the date I had written on the blackboard...
the day before...before going home...
and saw "9/11"...I turned to my class of 7th & 8th graders...
and said,"this was NO accident..."

I told them how I remembered...
exactly where I was and what I was doing...
as a sophomore in high school...
on November 22, 1963...
the day JFK was shot...

and that they would remember this day too...
for the rest of their lives...
where they were, what they were doing...
when they heard the news...

that week was a blur...

I had a student from Afghanistan in one class...
Mohamed's entire extended family was living...
in the area of Afghanistan where the fighting was heaviest...

he was very afraid for his family...
and after being threatened after school...
[there are always idiots, aren't there ?]
stayed home for the next few weeks...

my strongest memory of that day...
was watching the faces of the firefighters...
as they were going into the Towers...
trying to help... as hundreds streamed out...

and then... watching the collapse of the one...
and then the other...knowing that many of those
I had watched, "go in to help"...
were unable to save themselves...

when I went to my librarian[grad school] classes...
on Friday and Saturday...
we were all still stunned...

we had a symphony rehearsal that Tuesday night...
and the next... and then, 2 concerts at the end of the week...
a difficult series made even more difficult...
because the daughter of one of our musicians ...
was on the flight that crashed into the field...

we played Barber's "Adagio for Strings" ...
as a memorial for all the victims...



I had never seen this poster before...
they are all 9/11 victims...


when I thought of "September Morn"...
I always used to think of this painting...



now... all I can remember is a horrible death for thousands...

for all those who lost their lives...
and for those, left behind who mourn them...
I pray that the peace you feel in "September Morn"...
is the peace they have found...