September 11th again
This I wrote for the PC newsletter - yes, there are a lot of similarities....
Notes from the Edge:
Horrible. Shock. Unreal. War. These are the words for the week. I listen to the scratchy radio voices, I watch the planes plow into the buildings again and again, people running through the streets, burning buildings, the columns of twisted steel. The bodies falling from the towers, the towers themselves collapsing. I practice my Armenian - horrible, shock, unreal, war. I do not have the vocabulary I need, I cannot express this.
I lived in New York once, many years ago. I have friends and family there. They may exist in the past tense now; I do not know, I can not tell you. My sister calls across the seas and the time zones, my mother can’t get through, my host family calls to say how sorry they are, how terribly sorry. The news rolls over me, again and again; it flattens me with the weight of detail, all the minutia of pain. I listen to the scratchy radio voices. They cannot tell me the answers. I hardly know the questions myself.
Some Palenstines celebrated, dancing in the streets, firing guns into the air; some Arabs were attacked in the States, graffiti scrawled across mosques. These are not answers. NATO speaks of ‘acts of war’, invoking Article Five; the Pope calls it ‘a dark day’. The price of gold rises, flights are grounded and borders closed, tall buildings and Disney World evacuated. The flags fly at half mast, the stock market closes. In the city morning rises an ominous red through a pall of smoke and ash while Liberty holds her torch high, her blind eyes hooded. I peer into the TV screen, I see through this glass darkly. It is all so far away, it is all so close to my home. None of the information I hear can help me make sense of this. Is this the end of the world as I know it? I cannot tell what is happening, what will come next. No one knows, and we are all anxiously looking for answers, looking to see what is coming next. This brave new world that has such creatures in it; death on a pale horse.
Life in a state of wartime. It has always been elsewhere, and now it has come home. Somehow I have been expecting this all my life and I am still unprepared for the reality. I do not have the vocabulary I need for this, these are not words I want in my mouth. The radio rolls over me, I repeat my lessons. Horrible. Shock. Unreal. War. I can hardly bear to listen.
Notes from the Edge:
Horrible. Shock. Unreal. War. These are the words for the week. I listen to the scratchy radio voices, I watch the planes plow into the buildings again and again, people running through the streets, burning buildings, the columns of twisted steel. The bodies falling from the towers, the towers themselves collapsing. I practice my Armenian - horrible, shock, unreal, war. I do not have the vocabulary I need, I cannot express this.
I lived in New York once, many years ago. I have friends and family there. They may exist in the past tense now; I do not know, I can not tell you. My sister calls across the seas and the time zones, my mother can’t get through, my host family calls to say how sorry they are, how terribly sorry. The news rolls over me, again and again; it flattens me with the weight of detail, all the minutia of pain. I listen to the scratchy radio voices. They cannot tell me the answers. I hardly know the questions myself.
Some Palenstines celebrated, dancing in the streets, firing guns into the air; some Arabs were attacked in the States, graffiti scrawled across mosques. These are not answers. NATO speaks of ‘acts of war’, invoking Article Five; the Pope calls it ‘a dark day’. The price of gold rises, flights are grounded and borders closed, tall buildings and Disney World evacuated. The flags fly at half mast, the stock market closes. In the city morning rises an ominous red through a pall of smoke and ash while Liberty holds her torch high, her blind eyes hooded. I peer into the TV screen, I see through this glass darkly. It is all so far away, it is all so close to my home. None of the information I hear can help me make sense of this. Is this the end of the world as I know it? I cannot tell what is happening, what will come next. No one knows, and we are all anxiously looking for answers, looking to see what is coming next. This brave new world that has such creatures in it; death on a pale horse.
Life in a state of wartime. It has always been elsewhere, and now it has come home. Somehow I have been expecting this all my life and I am still unprepared for the reality. I do not have the vocabulary I need for this, these are not words I want in my mouth. The radio rolls over me, I repeat my lessons. Horrible. Shock. Unreal. War. I can hardly bear to listen.
posted by meg at 9:24 AM
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