9/11 – Remembering

The Twin Towers – North and South
To the sons and daughters who worked there
Their proud parents with swelled out chests
Loving to show their pride in where they worked; at how well their child had done
In whatever capacity
Executive; PA; Office Run-around; Supervisor; Mail Man

And here I was in the 9/11 Memorial Garden
2 beautiful pools – made in the foundations of the North and South Towers
The gushing of the water like thousands of tear drops
Drowning out any other sound – nothing else could be heard
We the visitors – all in quiet, sombre mood
Reverence and Respect tattooed all over our bodies

As the Firemen ran in to the building
Thousands ran out
343 fireman lost their lives
For the Michael’s, the Jesus’s, the Amy’s, the Judith’s, the Victor’s, the “Jr’s” and the “III’s”

Greater love hath no man …

All those Names
All those Names
Of all those PEOPLE

So quiet in here – couldn’t even hear a car honk
And this is New York – the land of gridlock, of a thousand yellow cabs

This is the place remembering where close to 3,000 people died – in the Towers and in those 4 airplanes
The 2 that hit the towers, the one that hit the Pentagon
And the 4th which was brought down in Shanksville by the passengers
To avoid hitting the US Capitol Building

Greater love hath no man ...

Eyes focused on the 2 pools
This is the place where the majority
Worked, laughed, flirted,
Were building their careers, making plans for their retirement
And this is the place where they died

Gliding one’s hand across their names
Of the married, the ‘in love’, the divorced, the partnered, the happily single
Of the Mums, the Dads, the Aunties, the Uncles,
The Brothers and the Sisters
All living their lives
Living the American Dream

What a waste, what a terrible waste
Of all these wonderful individuals and their brilliant talents; their ongoing potential
The enormity of the horror never wanes
The emotion is still raw – 13 years on
In this cemetery
It was as if they were all looking back at us
The muted silence of us visitors matching
Their irrevocable silence
But we could hear what they were telling us
‘Don’t let this happen again
Never let this happen again
This cannot happen again’

This inconsolable state can never be repeated

The depth of pain is so bottomless
We struggle to know what to say, what to feel
So we walk around in a limbo

God made Man – all of us
Black and White, Latino, African, Asian, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic …
And thus to love God is to love Man
The 2 are inseparable
Love is stronger than hate and Love is the only thing that can save Man

And the beauty of this love is shown by these 343 selfless Firemen
Man’s natural ability to be good – shone
And brought a radiant light in this hour of blackness

Through these 343, Man proved to God, his Creator
That we do possess an inherent ability to overpower evil
Through the same love that God gave us life by
Namely, the natural love of our brother
This surely justifies God’s decision to create us
We did not let Him down

Greater love hath no man …

By Clare Gibson ©
13 December 2012