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Twelve Meditations
for September 11, 2001
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1.
Manhattan with its arch of bridges spanning
the East River to the majestic spread of
the Hudson River widening in abundant swells--
Manhattan, an island floating,
bitter, sweet, bittersweet--
sardonic, seductive, dragging up
hallelujahs from the sea,
unfurling itself from the Hudson with its sailboats,
ocean liners and the Statue of Liberty
to the East River bobbing in wavelets
with its warehouses and loaded barges.
From a jumbo jet's cramped windows at night
passengers look down on a million glittering
lights strung together like diamonds on a necklace,
splashed with rubies and emeralds.
Hovering over the George Washington Bridge
the moon comes in for a soft landing.
The sun yawns and pushes itself up over
the horizon.
Morning settles in switching moods without
missing a beat.
The sky is drenched in sapphire
blue.
2.
It is a beautiful morning in New York.
The illuminated depth of the sky is not
assaulted by premonitions.
No thunderheads sizzle with greenish
lightning.
No sign from heaven warns people of
impending disaster.
There is no hint of evildoers
approaching the city like wicked
gods hurling thunderbolts.
Was American Intelligence not capable
of short-circuiting a terrorist plot
to fly commercial airliners into tall
buildings?
Perhaps such knowledge out of the blue
was confined like lightning bugs
in a bottle
or consigned as fantasy to history's
dustbin.
Perhaps imagination cannot grapple
with ungraspable reality.
3.
The World Trade Center and its twin
towers that ruled the sky
gone, just like that!
Papers whirl around like wind-driven
leaves floating down.
with half-eaten bread and abandoned
coffee.
The terrorists are a beast
all maw
with a bottomless gullet.
Our feelings are carried, bleeding
and raw
on gurneys through the streets
of lower Manhattan.
The sun streams into windows
as though it were just
another day.
4.
The wind's runs and arpeggios
thicken and darken.
Walls are added to the flaming
stew of human remains, computers
and furniture.
Sunlight pierces the torn flesh
of the towers
like a spear thrown by Pele,
volcanic goddess.
Steel beams, girders and cement
plunge down.
The towers fall to their knees.
Mountains of debris loom higher,
ever higher.
The rubble-strewn ground is scarred
with crevasses, saturated with
craggy wounds.
If our eyes could penetrate the
collapse of the towers
we would see bodies entwined
in chaotic intimacy,
huddled together in desperate
embraces.
Daylight closes like the lid of
a coffin slammed shut.
5.
It is an apocalyptic scene
torn from a page of
Wagner's Götterdämmerung.
Millions of tons of debris roar
like a great beast charging
the Norse gods.
Fire and smoke billow
from the charred remains of
the Valhalla
of the World Trade Center
and its towers.
Mourners stare at the twisted wreckage.
Wounds are so fresh, the scars
haven't formed yet.
6.
The crater still hisses and spits
like a snake.
Fire erupts from the pit of the
snake's belly.
Above, engineers pilot cranes,
excavators, front-loaders
and wrecking ball.
They crash, rip, tear, scoop.
Ironworkers and carpenters assist.
There are flashbacks.
A return to Viet Nam.
The stench of dead bodies.
Smell of festering wounds.
Anything that looks out of place
in a load is spread out.
Firefighters scour the ground
for pieces of flesh, fragments
of bone.
7.
Mass killings leave few bodies
intact.
Can you hold a Mass or say Kaddish
for a body part?
Priests and rabbis say Yes.
Loved ones incinerated trigger
images in Jewish consciousness:
Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau, Sobibor.
Fire and ash are inseparable
from the loss.
Acrid smoke and fire still rise
from the ground.
Mourners gather around photographs
in the streets.
How do we draw consolation and hope
in the absence of certainty?
8.
Numbers don't begin to tell
the story.
Numbers don't quantify hurt,
reveal the depth of loss,
the amount of sorrow.
Numbers don't say how
desperation grows.
Numbers don't show the pain of
putting dreams on dialysis
then removing the needle
and letting dreams die.
Numbers don't add up hopes
abandoned.
Disbelief and denial give way
to pain and grief.
We suspend old assumptions.
Mourning continues.
9.
We moved in solitude, bewildered
and confused.
Death might be acceptable
when we live to old age and die
peacefully, our lives fulfilled.
But not these deaths!
You, who died in terrorist-flown
planes,
you, unable to escape the burning
towers,
you, who jumped to your deaths
holding hands,
you, the firefighters who climbed
the endless stairs to rescue
men and women trapped on the higher
floors,
I recite the mourners Kaddish
for you:
Yitgadal v'yitkadash
shemei raba ...
10.
In the cosmic code, the dead
are made of starstuff linked
to the galaxy.
People hold urns filled with
ashes.
Fires below continue to burn.
Color burns out of the landscape.
Days are shorter.
Nights are longer, reverberating
in the shock of awareness.
Candles burn
in makeshift sites.
Life, as we knew it, went up
in flames,
yet love is not terminated.
It is not a dried-out seedpod
hung on a dead vine.
It glows with the luminosity
of stained glass.
11.
Under the fiery plumes of another sunrise
we move beyond the point of no return.
We move toward healing and redemption.
We embrace the meaning of love
in our lives.
We say goodbye to our dear ones.
We channel our grief into creative
understanding.
We turn our lives into a triumph
of the heart.
Although there remains a harrowing
vacancy in our souls
we face down mortality.
Hope has not been extinguished.
Desire still ebbs and flows.
The grand design and tiny detail
of life continue.
Tomorrow the sky will crown a great
sun on our foreheads.
12.
With our hands reaching out to those who
lost loved ones on 9/11,
with ears straining to hear the Kaddish *
echoing in every dimension of space and time,
may we be comforted by the words of the
Kaddish steeped in life, not death
(Death is never mentioned in the Kaddish).
May we who mourn reach an inner level
of holiness and wisdom that releases us
from unending sadness.
May we gather strength and renew our capacity
to reinvent ourselves.
May the red sun climb out of darkness
in a sensuous fusion of color and light
and flare more brightly than ever
and may our arms open in an ever-widening
embrace like the wings of an eagle
opening wide in an amazing wing-span
and fly ever higher like a melody
stripped of all ornament and detail that
merges with the Source of all solutions
and links memory with hope.
May we chant in all languages the Kaddish
affirming life
and release white doves in the air
in memory of those who died on 9/11:
Magnified and sanctified
may His great Name be
and praised
and glorified
and raised
and exalted
and honored
and uplifted
and lauded
above all blessings
and hymns and praises,
beyond all songs, psalms
and consolations
that are uttered in the world,
and say all
Amen!
May a great peace from heaven
and life
be upon us
with life's goodness for us
and for all people
and say all
Amen!
May He who makes peace
in His high places
grant us peace
and let us say
Amen!
He who brings peace
to His universe
will bring peace to us
and to all people
and let us say
Amen!
* Kaddish: the two thousand year old Jewish prayer for the dead.
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