I am not sure how twelve years have passed since September 11, 2001.
I am sure, however, that I will spend this day doing what I have done every September 11 since (and including) that fateful day: I will get in my car, and I will drive to the beach, to the place where I feel most spiritually at home.
There is a lot more that I want to say about the feelings this day engenders, but, alas, I took down last year's very raw post about it; that is a place I just cannot go anymore. We all feel and process grief and loss differently, and, on this day, I will keep mine private, allowing the salt of my tears to enmesh with that of the Pacific's cold, salty waters.
In memory of those lost that day, including especially my friend Todd, and all who have been lost subsequently in senseless acts of war, I offer a poem in tribute, and a whispered prayer that peace may be with them, their survivors and, soon, the world. Amen.
In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
***
I took the picture above during the summer of 1990, on my first-ever trip to New York City. My then-boyfriend took the picture of me, below, on the South Tower's observation deck. I remember feeling like I was on top of the world.
***
Please click on the year to find my posts on 9-11 from 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.
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