Today is September 11th. In an effort to avoid being too sad, I have avoided Facebook and major media today. Last year I wrote a long post about that day and how I felt. Today I felt sad and also old. In the morning, around the time that the second plane hit, people were talking about where they were. Most of my co-workers were in high school. I am not a great writer and anything to mark today feels pretty trite, so I thought that I'd borrow from a few other people.
In the fourth grade, to cement my uber-nerd status, I memorized the Gettysburg Address for extra credit. I'm not sure why my teacher had this on the extra credit list at the beginning of the school year, but it was the longest and hardest thing on the list, so I decided that I would memorize it. I actually still know the majority of the speech. This section has always reminded me of today:
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
And, today has always reminded me of the poem "Funeral Blues"* by W.H. Auden:
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the
dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and
with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners
come.
Let aeroplanes circle
moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is
Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East
and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out
every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
I'll feel better tomorrow, but maybe still old. I hope you will too.
*When I googled the poem for its full text I found that it was written as a satire of a politician's death. I'm going to pretend that I don't know that. My favorite line has always been "let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves," especially today.
