It is Friday, September 9th, 2011. I have just learned that emergency responders in NYC have not been invited to the memorial this Sunday marking the 10th anniversary of the 9/11.
I don't really want to remark on that other than I feel very sad about that, and this sorrow runs deeper, down the river that was etched in my spirit and heart that day 10 years ago.
On the one-year anniversary, I attended a service at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, NM. As I left, people were handing out names of people who died that day. I got the name of Michael Debrenzio. My friend got the name of Angela Pena. Within the moment I read Michael's name, I felt my hand touch a hot railing, and felt my legs crumble with nerves and fear as I tumble-stumbled down endless stairs unable to see through the dense smoke.
A flash of imaginative insight, I rushed home and wrote this poem. I offer it in remembrance.
No I will never forget that day nor will a million or so other people. I will spend the day skipping stones on the river with my son remembering and creating new memories.... May each of us cultivate memories of love and trust to juxtapose the many obvious and subtle memories of pain and deceit. We are free to do that...exactly that.
*************
FROM THIS DAY FORWARD
BY
MICHELLE BAKER
written September 18, 2002
Angel Pena
81st floor
nylons running
heart racing
teeth chattering
as she glanced out the window
just in time to see
an airplane
eye level.
The air condition was on too high
and she wanted to turn it down
but there were no controls from within her office.
She sat there
frozen
disbelief guiding her fingers
to the tear in her hose
and in the next instant,
she was gone.
Michael Debrenzio
stairwell of the 2nd tower
trudging up the stairs
cursing to himself
the electronic voice
that spoke the words
that lead him to his death -
the words that lead him out of his office
in the first place -
racing down flights,
bringing him and his office mates
to an abrupt halt ,
about face,
to ascend again
the path he sped down.
Tired and worn,
weary with worry,
The financials weren’t working out
and then two men passed him,
begged him and the others to turn back around.
But the computer says it’s ok to return to our desks.
Fuck the computers. Who ya going to listen to? A computer or a fellow human?
The computer. It’s programmed to know.
We are programmed to follow those things that are programmed to know better.
Onward Christian soldiers
into the Valley of Death
where the innocent will fear no evil,
raising their pens to their foreheads,
wiping the sweat of duty from their brows
at the command of Hal.
We, the people,
rise up
and fall back down
each time a siren beckons our attention
to turn and run
then high-tail it back
to our assignments
chasing the tide of orders
because we weren’t meant to leave in the first place,
we weren’t meant to abandon our designs of fate,
spiraling outward and inward,
snaring us in our own short-sightedness,
blinded by our own progress,
evolving beyond common sense
so that our fates
lie in the fiber optics
of a generated voice
placating our fears
with scripted rationale.
I taste fear.
I tasted it from 3000 miles away.
Fear stained the insides of my mouth
as I bit down on the bold reality
that life is brittle
and there is nothing I can do
to stop the mayhem
that entangles us in this web of emotion.
Tragedy and love collide
breaking us in twos, threes and fours,
shattering us
into the tiny particles we are
floating about in a space
that can hold absolutely everything
and does
and has
and will continue to do so
from this day forward
Amen.
In the silent glow
of aftermath,
I consider
the irony
the loss of those lives
has shed upon my hushed heart –
In the desert,
rain has fallen for two days -
the quiet tears of God
and all angels
that know
the sun can not rise
if it does not set.
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