September 11: "The Names," Love, "Godspeed"

I remember the morning.  Watching the news reports from the Twin Towers.  Seeing the second plane plow into the second Tower.  The Pentagon.  Shanksville.  And I remember going into a classroom at the university that afternoon, staring into the faces of young people who knew that their world had just changed forever.  

When I got home that evening, I picked up my nine-month-old daughter and hugged her.  Hard.

Billy Collins' poem for the victims of 9/11 . . . 

The Names

by: Billy Collins

Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.
A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a watery bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.

In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name --
Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.

Names written in the air
And stitched into the cloth of the day.
A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner --
Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and O'Connor.

When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children.
Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.

Names written in the pale sky.
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.

In the evening -- weakening light, the last swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds --
Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.

Names etched on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
Alphabet of names in a green field.
Names in the small tracks of birds.
Names lifted from a hat
Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

I'm not going talk any more about my memories of 9/11.  Everyone of a certain age has memories like mine about that terrible day.  Memories full of shock, anger, and grief.  

Tonight, I hold onto the love I feel for the people in my life.  If there was one thing that I learned that September day 23 years ago, it's this:  never to take for granted my family and friends.  At the end of my life, it's not going to matter how much money I have, how many books I've written, or how famous I am.  What is going to matter is how much I've loved and how much I was loved.  

That's Saint Marty's wish for you all this evening--love.

Godspeed

by: Martin Achatz

I write these words over two weeks
past the time I last spoke with you,
when you called me from your bed,
said in a voice so weak it sounded
like dandelion seeds in August,
“Always,” letting me know this would be
our last time together, that you were
done with this stupid blue marble
floating in this ever-expanding
universe, wanted to spread your arms
and soar. I write these words two
days after we all gathered to say
goodbye, Godspeed, thanks
in the rain, where table napkins
with daisies on them melted
into a puddle of beached jellyfish.
And I write these words twenty-
one years and one day after
the planes hit the Towers
and people dialed their husbands,
wives, sisters, brothers, children,
lovers, friends to say one more time
“I love you” and “I will always
be there.” Yesterday, I saw
the picture of a man who leapt
from a window in Tower One,
him diving down, arms glued
to his legs. I hope that he felt
like an eagle or kite or seraphim
as he sailed and spun. Hope
that the wind in his face reminded
him of that day as a kid
when his dad pushed him
on the playground
swing so high he thought
he would keep rising, rising
at the speed of God.