REFLECTIONS OF A TOWER
Lana, WAKE UP; the world is coming to an end!
Shawn, I worked late last night; I need more sleep.
Lana, look outside. I think this may be Armageddon.
GET
UP
RUN.
I don’t know what the fuck
is happening. I’m walking Smedley.
A plane flew into the World Trade Center.
We are under attack. GET UP. Should I pack?
I’ll GET UP, what to wear for the end of the world?
What do I take? We have Smedley. We have each other.
Wait, there must be another something we have to bring.
Food, drink? Phone? Photo albums, our home.
Are we safe? GET OUT. People are running,
unsure of where, just fast-paced.
We gather with the rest of our neighbors
in Brooklyn Heights on the Promenade.
It is a part of the brain I can never retrain
to unsee, buildings on fire, bodies jumping
into the air. Watching the falling
of Tower 2. My cousin has a meeting at 9.
Did he enter the inferno or turn
his car around in time to go home
and stay a father to his young children?
Papers are flying into the Hudson River;
ashes have begun to land on us in little slivers.
RUN HOME, open doors. For those who live.
Dazed survivors, moving robotically across
the Brooklyn Bridge. Survivors. Shawn races
back to our brownstone a few blocks away.
Opening doors to greet them with water,
towels, a brief stay. Run to the hospital,
donate blood. Stacey and I spring to
St. Vincent’s, turn back. No blood
is needed. The buildings have fallen.
None inside or in the air can be treated.
They are all dead. Shawn felt each soul pass
and shuddered in the sunny wind of this day.
The pain of life proved too much, Shawn said.
Shawn didn’t want to live much longer.
Though so much stronger than I.
Shawn died in the first days of COVID.
The evolution of the WTC reflects parts
of me and my life — special trips to NYC
to see my famous back surgeon
allowed me to photograph up and down
from the top of these two skyline buildings.
Somehow the pain of my brace was placated
connecting with the place I’d soon call home.
NYU. Out my Greenwich Village dorm room
window a tiny bit of view of a city’s symbols
I adopted as home, reminders of my fortitude,
what I could accomplish on my own. Here is where
I started my solo career in 2000. Ready to make it
in New York, New York, once again.
Open door to an open city. The towers
standing tall, offered its bolstering stability.
My latest move back to NYC was in 2009.
Smedley was gone. Freud took his place.
We lived in Battery Park. I can see the space
where those two towers belonged, now a city
sans a face of recognition, World Trade Centers,
glaringly missing. I walked the Promenade
nearly every day with Freud. Working hard
to see the sun, and even harder to avoid
nightmares of falling ashes and dropping bodies.
Some years passed.
I couldn’t stay away.
I MOVED BACK.
Ground Zero. So much controversy.
What will go in its place? What can
memorialize the lost souls with grace?
Alex and I watched the four buildings
of the Freedom Tower GO UP.
Slowly, ever so slowly,
but with each new floor and window
installed, corresponding sense
of trust and healing.
Having lost friends, seeing their names
on the wall, hearing the water, looking
deep down in the fall of the wells
where the buildings once stood. I understood.
I am evolving with you in humility. These four
new towers, symbol of resiliency and humanity.
This photo was snapped during one of those
afternoon walks. Freud smiling in the sun,
I am capturing the clouds, nearly touching
the sky, so many objects. In one photo,
there is hope. Faith. Feel the fortitude.
NYC, I love you. I’m arriving tomorrow.
And the first place I’ll go to is the
the newly erected Freedom Tower,
Looking for my shadow in its reflection.
Shadow of renewal in the city of possibility.
I see you, cousin, who gratefully ran late
that morn. His daughter wasn’t feeling
well; thank you, my little cousin, Lorn!
Pete and 11 other firemen from engine house 23,
orphaned children, CEOs, janitors, lost spectrum
of those inhabiting the WTC.
A day that changed our sense of having any center.
Shawn, I see you. The world didn’t end. I hope
to see the clouds reflected in the new towers again.
In a few hours, I’ll look into them, looking for you.
Snap a photo of life, the three other towers,
then up to the sky it almost touches,
recalling the horror
while I honor its new
life-affirming POWER.
