PREVAIL

Sky, so blue and brilliant, and Breeze carrying the scent of Imminent Fall, why must you haunt? 

This September Day?

You dawn and draft; not simply sky and breeze.

You are Face and Voice, Engine and Smoke, Boots Climbing, Bodies Leaping, Siren and Silence, Candle/Flower/Photograph, Sacrifice and Fear.

Hatred.

Hope.

Sky - so blue and brilliant, and Breeze carrying the scent of Imminent Fall, on this September Day, you cannot inspire or soothe.

You can only distress. 

"Time heals all wounds," says they.

But time will not heal Sky, so blue and brilliant, or Breeze carrying the scent of Imminent Fall.

On this September Day, time after time, they will pulse and prod: Remember. Remember.

I did it,  dear Reader!

Wrote a few sentences about It.  After a decade of avoidance.

My Uncle J. was a navigator on a Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress in World War II. In the hundreds of conversations he and I had about his years in the Air Force - the many missions he flew and dangers that confronted him - he never once spoke about bombs that were dropped, or damage and death that the bombs inflicted.

My uncle's silence about the war taught me that some experiences cannot be recounted; especially those so profound that every moment, every detail is seared into mind and heart.

Like that September morning. Eleven years ago.

Today I read posts and tweets, articles and blogs both mournful and reflective. I read the musings of pundits and politicians, that fuel fears for humankind.

But the words that resonate most today are words I long ago committed to memory. The words William Faulkner recited on December 10, 1950, when he accepted a Nobel prize in Stockholm.

Half a century ago, these words were a challenge to writers and poets.

But on this September day, these words might be a challenge - and inspiration - to all of us.

"....Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice...

... I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.

I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past." 

September 11, 2001 was a day so profound that every moment, every detail is seared into our minds and hearts.

Surely it is a story that writes itself. 

A day forever synonymous with 'courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and sacrifice'.

A day to remind humankind, year after year, that we will not merely endure: we will prevail. Because we have souls and spirits capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.

So long as we remember that the basest of all things is to be afraid. Then forget it, forever.

And Sky, so blue and brilliant, with Breeze carrying the scent of Imminent Fall, will once again dawn and draft, as simply sky and breeze.