9/11/21--20 years since the day that changed the world

 From my previous post you know why I was distracted. But something had been rattling around in my brain in the weeks leading up to the 20th anniversary, and it manifested as a poem. My minister & I had been discussing whether or not to do something on the anniversary, but with COVID & our building being flooded we decided it just couldn't be done. But after writing this I sent to him, and he included it in the service on Sept 12th. So, instead of my usual 9/11 post, this is my offering regarding that awful day.  (Not sure why it copied double spaced, but oh, well.)

September 11, 2021

It was 20 years ago—a generation

Since the day that changed the world,

Man’s cruelty to man flashed around the globe in minutes

The gapping maws in the buildings, in the earth.

Unimaginable before

Now our collective memory.

 

Zeus gave Pandora a box, the Greeks say

As a way to explain the horrors in our lives.

She opened it, and out flew all the evils:

Greed, envy, hatred, pain, disease, poverty, war, death

All of those things were also released

When those planes flew into the towers, the Pentagon

The pristine earth in Pennsylvania.

Gapping maws of destruction

Not a myth, all too true a reality

Changing the world, crueler since then

From that day 20 years ago—a generation.

 

Each anniversary the names are read, the bells toll

We reflect on the good and bad that people can accomplish in hours

On what we lost that day:

Our innocence and our hubris

Our resilience, but then our anger

Meting out punishment to those who opened the lid for evil to escape.

Yet the vile was not returned from whence it came.

 

But Pandora’s box also held

What humans needed to survive all the horrors then and now;

Something so small, yet so large,

Just one little word on which we pin our dreams:

Hope

 

After a generation of war and hatred and death

The despair from that day continues.

Yet like a seed which becomes a mighty tree

Hope can be nurtured and coaxed and fed, given light and air

Can be brought forth as a legacy.

If we each plant the seeds of hope

We can create instead of destruct

The gapping maws can sprout with life renewed

A forest can grow over 20 years—again, a generation.