I figure that in the west, most human know EXACTLY where they were on September Eleventh, 2001. I know I do: working for the Dutch Railways, on loan to a small IT outfit in Nijmegen, and connected to the outside world at work through a radio and a Dutch news website (http://nu.nl). It started small, with messages of a private airplane having hit the World Trade Center.

But then Global consciousness caught on, as minds everywhere began to speculate, ponder, and overreact. Like a mushroom cloud it blew out of proportion where a Piper Cub became a Lear Jet, and the Lear a 747, two even (don’t nitpick, I know I probably have the ultimate type wrong). It came and went, was reported to have even been sensed physically 15 minutes before it even happened, and our world was never again the same…. yet Life remained!

Two years later I also remembered well, for that was the day my writer’s talent kicked in with a sudden jolt of poetry. First ever poem I actually felt good about was this, written in five minutes of coffee break at work, September 11th, 2003:

XPlode……. …….NJoy

Caught by Rubble, flying high,
Planes Explode and Thousands Die.
Does Bin Laden Rape the Sky?
Why did My Loved Ones have to Die?

It’s been a While, and Time Heals All,
And 9/11 says it All.
I See it now, as Clear as Day:
This Sorrow Once Will Go Away.

Remember All we Will One Day,
To find No Fault in Mayhem.
The Negatives come as they May,
We cannot Once Delay Them.

But Learn we Will, to conquer All,
Improve the Black to Colour.
My Soul now soars just like those Planes,
Awaiting Our Tomorrow…….

I know, it’s like those christmas hits that return every year, awful right?  But I just can’t resist bringing it back to life.

And now nine years have passed. Life still goes on, and we mostly notice whether movies featuring New York have the towers in them or not. Some may worry about what is to replace the towers, or remember their family and friends that came to pass that day, but the gaping wound has mostly healed into an itchy scar where the global conscousness is concerned. There may be some ghost pains in the two limbs that were removed, but the patient is already up and about, making the most of Life….

Love your disasters, because they too make life what it is!

Dré