NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Sunday, September 11th, 2011

In memoriam, ten years later

Today is the tenth anniver­sary of the Sep­tem­ber 11th attacks, which destroyed New York’s World Trade Cen­ter, dam­aged the Pen­ta­gon, and claimed the lives of thou­sands of inno­cent Amer­i­cans. In hon­or of those who died that day, we’re repub­lish­ing a poem that we post annu­al­ly here on The Advocate.
Old New York City Skyline with World Trade Center

The American flag is raised at the Pentagon on September 11th

Mil­i­tary ser­vice­mem­bers ren­der hon­ors as fire and res­cue work­ers unfurl a huge Amer­i­can flag over the side of the Pen­ta­gon dur­ing res­cue and recov­ery efforts fol­low­ing the Sept 11 ter­ror­ist attack. The attack came at approx­i­mate­ly 9:40 a.m. as a hijacked com­mer­cial air­lin­er, orig­i­nat­ing from Wash­ing­ton D.C.‘s Dulles air­port, was flown into the south­ern side of the build­ing fac­ing Route 27. (Pho­to: Pho­tog­ra­pher’s Mate 1st Class Michael W. Pendergrass/United States Navy)

Two thou­sand one, nine eleven
Two thou­sand plus arrive in heaven.
As they pass through the gate,
Thou­sands more appear in wait.
A beard­ed man with stovepipe hat
Steps for­ward say­ing, “Let’s sit, let’s chat.”

They set­tle down in seats of clouds,
A man named Mar­tin shouts out proud,
“I have a dream!” and once he did
The New­com­er said, “Your dream still lives.”

Groups of sol­diers in blue and gray
Oth­ers in kha­ki, and green then say
“We’re from Bull Run, York­town, the Maine”
The New­com­er said, “You died not in vain.”

From a man on sticks one could hear
“The only thing we have to fear…”
The New­com­er said, “We know the rest,
trust us sir, we’ve passed that test.”

“Courage does­n’t hide in caves.
You can’t bury free­dom, in a grave.”
The New­com­ers had heard this voice before
A dis­tinct Yan­kee twang from Hyan­nis­port shores.

A silence fell with­in the mist
Some­how the New­com­er knew that this
Meant time had come for her to say
What was in the hearts of the two thou­sand plus that day.

“Back on Earth, we wrote reports,
Watched our chil­dren play in sports
Worked our gar­dens, sang our songs
Went to church and clipped coupons
We smiled, we laughed, we cried, we fought
Unlike you, great we’re not”

National Guard at the World Trade Center

Two mem­bers of the Nation­al Guard stand beneath one of hun­dreds of Amer­i­can flags that have been hoist­ed or worn by res­cue work­ers at the site of the World Trade Cen­ter (Pho­to: Andrea Booher/FEMA).

The tall man in the stovepipe hat
Stood and said, “Don’t talk like that!
Look at your coun­try, look and see
You died for free­dom, just like me.”

Then, before them all appeared a scene
Of rub­bled streets and twist­ed beams
Death, destruc­tion, smoke and dust
And peo­ple work­ing just ’cause they must

Haul­ing ash, lift­ing stones,
Knee deep in hell, but not alone
“Look! Black­man, White­man, Brown­man, Yellowman
Side by side help­ing their fel­low man!”
So said Mar­tin, as he watched the scene
“Even from night­mares, can be born a dream.”

Down below three fire­men raised
The col­ors high into ashen haze
The sol­diers above had seen it before
On Iwo Jima back in ’44

The man on sticks stud­ied every­thing closely
Then shared his per­cep­tions on what he saw mostly
“I see pain, I see 20 tears,
I see sor­row — but I don’t see fear.”

“You left behind hus­bands and wives
Daugh­ters and sons and so many lives
are suf­fer­ing now because of this wrong
But look very close­ly. You’re not real­ly gone.

All of those peo­ple, even those who’ve nev­er met you
All of their lives, they’ll nev­er for­get you
Don’t you see what has happened?
Don’t you see what you’ve done?
You’ve brought them togeth­er as one.”

With that the man in the stovepipe hat said
“Take my hand,” and from there he led
two thou­sand plus heroes, New­com­ers to heaven
On this day, two thou­sand one, nine eleven.

- by Paul Spread­bury, ded­i­cat­ed to the vic­tims of Sep­tem­ber 11th

Adjacent posts

  • Enjoyed what you just read? Make a donation


    Thank you for read­ing The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate, the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s jour­nal of world, nation­al, and local politics.

    Found­ed in March of 2004, The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate has been help­ing peo­ple through­out the Pacif­ic North­west and beyond make sense of cur­rent events with rig­or­ous analy­sis and thought-pro­vok­ing com­men­tary for more than fif­teen years. The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate is fund­ed by read­ers like you and trust­ed spon­sors. We don’t run ads or pub­lish con­tent in exchange for money.

    Help us keep The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate edi­to­ri­al­ly inde­pen­dent and freely avail­able to all by becom­ing a mem­ber of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute today. Or make a dona­tion to sus­tain our essen­tial research and advo­ca­cy journalism.

    Your con­tri­bu­tion will allow us to con­tin­ue bring­ing you fea­tures like Last Week In Con­gress, live cov­er­age of events like Net­roots Nation or the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion, and reviews of books and doc­u­men­tary films.

    Become an NPI mem­ber Make a one-time donation

  • NPI’s essential research and advocacy is sponsored by: