The First Night

Wednesday, September 12, 2001 8:13:37 AM
        Its not been a night for sleep. Not unusual for me... I'm always up most the night. I have been going out to look down on the wreckage and ruin. All through the night one image sticks out in my mind. As I look out on the smoke pouring out of what was The World Trade Center, and now called ground zero the klieg lights creating an eerie white glow underlighting the cloud. The jagged tops of blackened buildings glimpsed through casual breaks in the blanket of smoke as the wind continues to carry the dust and smoke east over lower Manhattan. Each time I look my eye would be drawn to the clearer end of the site where a few buildings still stand around Battery Park City, (a project which my friends Vaughn and Anne Marrie had worked on). Glad to see their work still standing I'm sure the area has sustained much more damage than meets the eye. Still something more remarkable standing there in plain view kept clear by prevailing winds just to the west of Ground Zero. I feel like Francis Scott Key when I see her standing tall in her tarnished green gown holding high her torch as if her light might guide the rescue workers as they hope to find victims. Or more to the point to give guiding light to all the many souls traveling homeward. I see even from here her slightly bowed head and her concerned and caring expression and I feel her heart. Though I see her pain and respect her solemnity I can't help but notice her strength and her pride as she seems now to stand ever taller... ever stronger. A true mother of Liberty mourning the sudden and unexpected death of her children while she looks directly into the epicenter of the catastrophe and exclaims to the world "The Children of Liberty, the meek and the mild, may have been smitten before my eyes but The Family of Liberty lives strong!"

        On a much more grim note I finally heard from a friend who had been staying at the Marriot down at the World Trade Center.  I had several messages from him on my machine during the day as he wandered around in shock carrying his luggage. He was visiting from San Francisco and ran out of the hotel after the towers collapsed. I kept trying to reach his cell phone and direct him to safety... it was only later in the night that he managed to call back. As he described the scene he had lived through he described the cloud of dust and debris as having an ominous red tint. Something I had noticed even while I was down there stocking up friends in Soho with food and water. A strange red hue to the cloud not from the glow or tint of flames but clearly of the hue of blood.