Saturday 11 September 2010

In Memoriam A.H.H.Obitt
by Alfred,Lord Tennyson



.............And suck'd from out the distant gloom
A breeze began to tremble o'er
The large leaves of the sycamore,
And fluctuate all the still perfume,

And gathering freshlier overhead,
Rock'd the full-foliaged elms, and swung
The heavy-folded rose,and flung
The lillies to and fro,and said

"The dawn, the dawn," and died away;
And East and West, without a breath,
Mixt their dim lights, like life and death,
To broaden into boundless day.


Three years and four days before the Twin Towers fell I was standing beneath them at 8:45am on my honeymoon.  We could have gone in.  Gone up to the Observation deck, we didn't, I'm strangely glad we didn't.  Even though by 2001 three years had passed since I stood there looking up at their magnificence, I still felt such an affinity with New York, with the people and the tragedy and horror of all those lives lost.  As I watched our television screen, I kept thinking of those who that day had gone up to the top unlike us, and thinking of all the people working away in their offices the day I stood there who were most probably the very same people loosing their lives so horribly that day.  We were lots of us doing that-putting ourselves there...trying to gauge how we would feel, my God!... We most likely can't even begin to understand what it must have been like.  Nine years gone now. I would like to go back.  I love New York . I hope I can return one day to stand where we stood that morning.

1 comment:

Splenderosa said...

The events of September 11th touched everyone who is American as nothing else in my lifetime. Long ago, I had lunch at the restaurant at the tip top called "Windows on the World." From there one could see forever, it was thrilling & exciting to be there as a guest of a member of this lovely club...on top of the world. Yes, we will be back up there somewhere someday. xx's