By: Jeffrey Dreiblatt
After September 11, I started a scrap book,
pasting in profiles of people who died,
known and unknown to me; stories of miraculous
survival: A group descending the Tower stairs,
helping a struggling woman were
in the exact place not to be crushed when
the building collapsed around them.
Miraculous deaths: Father Mychal Judge
said to have died first to be able to greet others
as they arrived in heaven. I believed in miracles then.
Later, I added a New York Times piece:
a blind woman regained her sight
after a bump on the head. A miracle, not
on September 11th. I painted the page gold.
Jeffrey Dreiblatt is a poet, visual artist and volunteer firefighter. His poetry has appeared in The Dillydoun Review, Bindweed, Bluepepper and other publications. He lives in Copake and Brooklyn, New York.
"This poem is part of my attempt to put order onto the extreme chaos and destruction of the September 11th attacks, which pushed us, whoever wants to be included in that collective consciousness, into beliefs, places and emotions we never expected to go. But I wrote the poem more than twenty years later and my notebook is still unfinished on my bookshelf."