September 11: 9-11, Patriotism, Better Than We Are, "The Names"

You will excuse me if I step away from Hitchhiker's on this day.

Today is the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11.  Eighteen years ago, the world was changed irrevocably.  I'm not going to rehash my memories of that day.  The news playing 24/7.  The images of innocent people jumping to their deaths from those burning towers.  The towers collapsing.  Those ghostly faces of survivors stumbling out of that cloud of dust and dirt and smoke that covered and hovered over everything.

I don't believe in calling September 11th "Patriot Day."  For me, this day shouldn't be about patriotism, creating this feeling of the United State of America versus the world.  I am proud, most of the time, to call myself a citizen of this country.  (These Trump years have tested that pride a great deal.)  The kind of nationalism that exists in this country at the moment, that sometimes gets branded "patriotism," makes me a little ashamed of being an American.

For me, what I remember most about the days following September 11, 2001, is how it brought strangers together.  It seemed to provoke both the best (and worst) elements in human beings.  In some places, people (white, African American, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, man, woman, gay, straight, transgender, immigrant, citizen) felt a united grief and a united hope.  We simply weren't going to live in fear and hatred.  In other places, hatred did emerge, in the form of attacks against Muslim Americans and their businesses and homes.  That was the shameful side of the aftermath of 9-11.

Me?  I hold onto that grief and hope.  The idea that we can all be better than we are.  We can love each other more.  Respect each other more.  Support each other more.  Make the world a better, safer place through kindness and compassion.  That is something I can remember and cherish about this day when so many lost their lives.

So, if this day, for you, is about flag waving and chanting "U.S.A.!"--then this post is not for you.  However, if this day is about remembering the victims, joining together in love and support with all of your neighbors (no matter what color or gender or religion or nationality or sexual orientation), then you are a true patriot.

Saint Marty remembers this day with a poem from Billy Collins . . .

The Names

by:  Billy Collins

Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.

A fine 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 green rows in a 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.