9/11

They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this Nation.
~ Henry Ward Beecher

So many years ago, but yet it only seems like yesterday. I still linger on the thought that we were only there a month before it happened. Sometimes I say to myself what if we had waited another month to go on vacation; what if we had decided to go there instead of the empire state building…..way to many what ifs.

For the Falling Man
I see you again and againtumbling out of the sky,in your slate-grey suit and pressed white shirt.At first I thought you were debrisfrom the explosion, maybe gray plaster wall or fuselage but then I realized that people were leaping.I know who you are, I knowthere's more to you than just this image on the news, this ragdoll plummeting -- I know you were someone's lover, husband, daddy. Last night you read stories to your children, tucked them in, then curled into sleep next to your wife. Perhaps there was small sleepy talk of the future. Then, before your morning coffee had cooled you'd come to this; a choice between fire or falling.How feeble these words, billowingin this aftermath, how ineffectualthis utterance of sorrow. We can see plainly it's hopeless, even as the words trail from our mouths-- but we can't help ourselves -- how I wish we could trade them for something that could really have caught you.