• Skip to main content

Carolyn Martin - Poet

“All my life I have tried to find the truth and make it beautiful.” – Sting

  • About
  • Books
  • Publications
  • Sample Poems
  • Events
  • Let’s Connect
  • My Blog

Remembering 9/11

September 11, 2021 by Carolyn Martin 12 Comments

It happens this way …

Twenty years ago today, I settled in the front row of a hotel conference room after delivering a management training presentation to 300 people in Orlando, Florida. I had just taken a few deep breaths when the back doors burst open and hotel personnel rushed in to tell us about the attacks on the World Trade Center. In those first surreal moments, people rushed from the room, scrambled to call home, book flights (the airports were already closed), and grab rental cars that would drive them all around the country.

For the next three days I was hunkered down in a darkened hotel room doing the worse thing I could do: watch the continuous stream of news about the horrors unfolding in real time. I flew home four days after the attack.

A month later I was in NYC, standing in front of another audience. I had already taken the subway down to ground zero, talked to as many policemen, -women, and citizens I could find, and heard stories of tragedies and miracles that haunted me for years.

Then, last September 11, 2020, I almost forgot to commemorate the day because we were preparing to evacuate from near-by fires. Ultimately, we were blessed not to have to leave our home. Now in the year that brings us to another September 11, fires, floods, deaths, upheavals around the world remind us again and again that, on any given day, we have not here a lasting city.

Here’s a poem I wrote that unites last September with the original event. It will appear in The Poeming Pigeon: From Pandemic to Protest which will be released on October 15, 2021. For information, go to https://thepoetrybox.com/taking-pre-orders-tpp-pandemic-protest.

 

https://carolynmartinpoet.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Fires-This-Time-9_7_21-4.30-PM-1.mp3

Fires This Time

Oregon, September 11, 2020

While I check out evacuation routes and pray

our packed cars are precaution not necessity,

thousands have lost all there is to lose except

each other and maybe a treasure or two: a dog,

a cat, livestock raced to fairgrounds, a teen’s diary.

 

They don’t see what we­­––the hunkered-down-in-place––

see: miles of ash heaps, contorted cars and trucks,

war-weary firefighters who breathe the unbreathable.

 

Meanwhile, my mother lies in a NJ nursing home.

She can’t remember if she ate her lunch or how

to answer her phone. I watch her mind slip

into the smoke that wipes out our Douglas firs.

 

Today she doesn’t know her air is clean

or that nineteen years ago, she breathed the ash

of 3000 souls drifting by in another blackened sky.

 

Filed Under: It happens this way ...

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Joan Miller says

    September 11, 2021 at 7:39 am

    Absolutely the most poignant thing I’ve read from you Carolyn. I can feel the love for your mother, country and fellow citizens with every stroke of your pen. When God put a heart in every person, yours was His model 💕

    Reply
  2. Carolyn Martin says

    September 11, 2021 at 7:43 am

    Thank you, Joan. How kind!

    Reply
  3. Penelope Scambly Schott says

    September 11, 2021 at 1:29 pm

    very powerful

    Reply
    • Carolyn Martin says

      September 11, 2021 at 1:32 pm

      thanks, p!

      Reply
  4. Kathleen Cassen Mickelson says

    September 14, 2021 at 2:52 pm

    Another poem that grabs me by the throat! Beautiful.

    Reply
    • Carolyn Martin says

      September 14, 2021 at 3:25 pm

      Thanks, Kathleen! We’re enjoying a wonderfully cool September. What a difference!

      Reply
  5. Maryanne D Evanko says

    September 14, 2021 at 2:55 pm

    Superbly written Carolyn…and my98 year old Mother was and is in the same condition this year! Good to know someone else understands.

    Reply
    • Carolyn Martin says

      September 14, 2021 at 3:24 pm

      Good bless our mothers!

      Reply
  6. AmparoPikarsky says

    September 15, 2021 at 9:09 am

    God bless your gentle heart that experiences both public and private sorrows and yet makes note of the reasons we have to be grateful.

    Reply
    • Carolyn Martin says

      September 15, 2021 at 9:43 am

      What a lovely comment, Ampy! I appreciate your insights and thoughtfulness!

      Reply
  7. Sue Popek says

    September 17, 2021 at 12:11 pm

    Your words strike at the very core of loss as well as your faith. The two are tied so intricately. It’s a very moving poem with the stark reality of the many uncertainties we are all living amongst. Somewhere in there, I sense the hope of it all. Beautiful, Carolyn.

    Reply
  8. Carolyn Martin says

    September 17, 2021 at 12:29 pm

    Thanks so much for your kind comments, Sue!

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Kathleen Cassen Mickelson Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I accept that my given data and my IP address is sent to a server in the USA only for the purpose of spam prevention through the Akismet program.More information on Akismet and GDPR.

All Content and Photos Copyright © 2022 Carolyn Martin · Website by The Poetry Box · Powered by Wordpress· Log in
  • Facebook
  • Email