In memory of all the victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
To the wind: remember us. Who's not to say
the airplane roaring overhead in fact
is Armageddon? The wind is cool today,
a kind of calm before the last attack.The wind is hurling birds across the sky,
enacting distance, pretending what can fly
is always beautiful. Who's not to say
that what we can remember when we die
is really just a single moment? Not a life
of great accomplishments, but a cool wind
that touched us once, less urgently than love,
but as familiar as a long-lost friend.
The wind does not remember us. Yet we'll
remember it, distantly, desperately.
This article originally ran in the October 29, 2001 issue of the magazine.