Sep 11 2012 Eleven years ago today I was recuperating from prostate cancer surgery, still at home, still with catheter attached. It’s like when JFK was shot – we all remember, and should continue to remember, where we were and what we were doing. I was watching the “Today” show much like any other morning. First, there was the confusion about the smoke coming from the first tower. Then we saw the second airplane hitting the second tower. And, and, and from that point on down the twisting path since then over these eleven years.

About five years later, I wrote the following poem on, yes, 11/9, but reflecting:

Shadows on 11/9
 
Overhead,
three buzzards
thread the wind currents,
trace sweeping shadows
as they arc over leafless trees
south of the pasture.

On the trail today as I pass
bushes with lustrous green leaves,
cherry-red berries,
an owl’s shadow cuts across the path in front of me.
I look up,
but into the sun.

Back home,
two crows argue on the split-rail fence
outside my bedroom window.