September 18th

I wrote this about 8 years ago.

At last, finally, thank God, a gray and dreary day. I drive into nothingness today. I only see a gray line of trees where yesterday there was the green and red and gold of early autumn. At last the day reflects my mood. Finally, the trees appear to cry, dripping with thick morning moisture and I know it's okay to cry. They cry with the millions, who mourn for the thousands, who came from the 80 countries, who worked in the two towers that fell in just a few hours, one week ago.

The days since have mocked me with warm nights, with sun and blue sky, absent of cloud and plane. That blue sky has angered me to cry out, "Don't you see!" and ask, "Where are you God? Won't you do something? Aren't you listening?". When that anger is not relieved, I turn it toward my radio, to the talk show host and the man on the street who want revenge and even closer to my neighbor who talks without knowing and is ready to send my friends to war, and I am ready to bind them and gag them so they can only hear what is inside their own heads when suddenly I realize that that is how it all began, and withdraw into shame. People speak, but I can't quite connect, and I am further withdrawn into the isolation. The isolation that it is to be a human being.

But on this day, I am comforted. Comforted by the gray blanket that covers the road ahead of me as I drive to work. The world is reflecting what I feel inside and it feels like I can hide here for a while. As I come over a hill, the sun filters through. Through a sugar maple in it's golden September glory. The gold dances off the drops in the air, all the way to me and all the way through me and into the fields around me. In the fields, it hits wet webs and they glow like tiny lanterns.