Sunday, September 11, 2011

911 Memories

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Read and performed at the 911 Ceremony 2011

....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.- Billy Collins

Turn Again To Life

If I should die and leave you here a while,
be not like others sore undone,
who keep long vigil by the silent dust.
For my sake turn again to life and smile,
nerving thy heart and trembling hand
to do something to comfort other hearts than thine.
Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mine
and I perchance may therein comfort you. - Mary Lee Hall





1 comment:

Kathleen said...

Thank you for sharing these September 11 memories, Mary.

Today, for me...this quote by Martin Luther King Jr. has taken over my thoughts - a quote you posted some time ago...

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation." --Martin Luther King Jr., Strength To Love, 1963.

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Mary Oliver

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?