9/11 through poetry

I had not intended to publish these here.  I had not intended to publish them anywhere, really.  But I was reading some others' reactions to 9/11 and I was suddenly compelled to talk about my own. I could discuss in great detail the deep depression that came over me for perhaps a month, despite knowing no one directly affected by the event.  I could talk about my sister's getting a flag tattooed on her previously unmarked arm, a seemingly extreme but I think, now, emotionally understandable response to the trauma.  I could talk about remaining glued to the TV despite the pain it caused me to watch those pictures and videos over and over and over and over...or the abject horror of sitting through the raw footage shot by that documentary filmmaker embedded with the firemen who were in the Towers.  I did watch.  I forced myself to.  I felt I had to.  But, far simpler, I decided to share three brief poems that, in three different ways, get at the ways I have reacted to this seminal event in American--and my--history.

Photos hidden away

i still can’t look at the pictures.
so many years later,
the thick white ash
a fragment of a
bad dream,
the reams of papers
raining
from the smoky sky
in a nightmare hurricane
just an image from
some long past mirage,
and the headlines—
the headlines—
called up in the animated
dust
of no-longer buildings
and used-to-be people—
the headlines
i read then, and
folded away
carefully
to keep for
someone else’s posterity and
never have seen again
and never will
bring the surreal
vision to the too real
world
where the pictures
of flames shooting from
buildings
of buildings collapsing
into smoke
are not magicians’ illusions
as they should be
as they would be if
the world were
sane.

Stumbling upon ground zero

driving one day through
lower manhattan
i was struck
by the sudden increase
in security.
the u.n. i said to my daughter,
and then,
realizing,
oh god,
do you know where we are?
her face shifted for
one moment and she knew:
i don’t want to see it,
she said,
and i understood,
but we have to,
i said, we have to,
so we drove around the block
where a giant hole still sat
in the ground
so many years later
and there we stood,
while hawkers
sold souvenirs on
the walk behind us
and someone literally
on a soap box
blathered about blame,
staring in absolute
silence
at crossed
twisted
metal bars
at an american flag
at a vast expanse
of still-nothing
at the price
of freedom.

Strength

I’m not proud of this:
When it happened, I was teaching.
It was a sophomore class, just a normal
Tuesday morning.
When a colleague alerted me,
I turned on the radio
And sat.
Just sat.
The newscaster spoke of the confusion,
Of the plane striking,
Of the second plane and
The news from Washington,
And I simply sat.
When the period ended
I suppose the students assumed
That they should leave
And just moved on,
For the next class took their places.
And we all just sat,
Listening.
Catatonic.
When the buildings fell, we sat.
Small cries escaped us.
But we did not move.
I heard later that some of my colleagues
Taught their lessons that day,
Kept their heads together
And bulled ahead.
I was not among them.
I was unable to function for days.
Weeks, really.
I’m not proud of this.
I’m not.
I wish I were stronger.
I wish we all were.

9/11 through poetry

I had not intended to publish these here.  I had not intended to publish them anywhere, really.  But I was reading some others' reactions to 9/11 and I was suddenly compelled to talk about my own. I could discuss in great detail the deep depression that came over me for perhaps a month, despite knowing no one directly affected by the event.  I could talk about my sister's getting a flag tattooed on her previously unmarked arm, a seemingly extreme but I think, now, emotionally understandable response to the trauma.  I could talk about remaining glued to the TV despite the pain it caused me to watch those pictures and videos over and over and over and over...or the abject horror of sitting through the raw footage shot by that documentary filmmaker embedded with the firemen who were in the Towers.  I did watch.  I forced myself to.  I felt I had to.  But, far simpler, I decided to share three brief poems that, in three different ways, get at the ways I have reacted to this seminal event in American--and my--history.

Photos hidden away

i still can’t look at the pictures.
so many years later,
the thick white ash
a fragment of a
bad dream,
the reams of papers
raining
from the smoky sky
in a nightmare hurricane
just an image from
some long past mirage,
and the headlines—
the headlines—
called up in the animated
dust
of no-longer buildings
and used-to-be people—
the headlines
i read then, and
folded away
carefully
to keep for
someone else’s posterity and
never have seen again
and never will
bring the surreal
vision to the too real
world
where the pictures
of flames shooting from
buildings
of buildings collapsing
into smoke
are not magicians’ illusions
as they should be
as they would be if
the world were
sane.

Stumbling upon ground zero

driving one day through
lower manhattan
i was struck
by the sudden increase
in security.
the u.n. i said to my daughter,
and then,
realizing,
oh god,
do you know where we are?
her face shifted for
one moment and she knew:
i don’t want to see it,
she said,
and i understood,
but we have to,
i said, we have to,
so we drove around the block
where a giant hole still sat
in the ground
so many years later
and there we stood,
while hawkers
sold souvenirs on
the walk behind us
and someone literally
on a soap box
blathered about blame,
staring in absolute
silence
at crossed
twisted
metal bars
at an american flag
at a vast expanse
of still-nothing
at the price
of freedom.

Strength

I’m not proud of this:
When it happened, I was teaching.
It was a sophomore class, just a normal
Tuesday morning.
When a colleague alerted me,
I turned on the radio
And sat.
Just sat.
The newscaster spoke of the confusion,
Of the plane striking,
Of the second plane and
The news from Washington,
And I simply sat.
When the period ended
I suppose the students assumed
That they should leave
And just moved on,
For the next class took their places.
And we all just sat,
Listening.
Catatonic.
When the buildings fell, we sat.
Small cries escaped us.
But we did not move.
I heard later that some of my colleagues
Taught their lessons that day,
Kept their heads together
And bulled ahead.
I was not among them.
I was unable to function for days.
Weeks, really.
I’m not proud of this.
I’m not.
I wish I were stronger.
I wish we all were.