Tears, white
\nflecked fears, peeling paper-shreds, fragments of floors,
\ndust under a sunlit sky early that Tuesday, this September,
\non a mid-Manhattan Morning.\u00a0 Grey, dusted figures drift
\nstunned under this shattered, Autumn-skied space figures stumble through Down -town streets,\u00a0 in wordless silence.<\/p>\n
North and
\nthen carrying early morning coffee cups greeting friends
\nwith idle chat from lift doors and lobbies, across a paper
\npile stacked here and there, still under yesterday\u2019s desk till howling siren – scream, as explosion then implosion, took
\nout first this floor, then those above and many beneath.<\/p>\n
South where
\norange glow and scattered fragments filled wide windows open spaces\u00a0 where, in stunned amazement, people stood. The grey-haired banker, the brash – young stock broker, the imaginative engineer, the young sharp eyed carpenter, staring speechless, unable fully to understand, secure still
\nwithin their personal space, beyond an expanding fireball.<\/p>\n
Final impact
\non South,\u00a0 a faint line of hope gone,\u00a0 as Mothers of young ones,\u00a0 the Father of four,\u00a0 wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, lovers, friends and families, the casual workers, those city consultants,
\nthe cluster of company directors, their frantic fingers on mobile phones,\u00a0 tapping out numbers and only cold voiced answering machines responding.\u00a0\u00a0 Final call.<\/p>\n
Ground zero.<\/p>\n
October\u00a0 2001, New York City\u00a0\u00a0 Manhattan 9\/11<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Chris McDonnell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,285],"tags":[977,1233],"class_list":["post-11372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-and-architecture","category-pastoral-theology","tag-977","tag-chris-mcdonnell"],"yoast_head":"\n