The lights will shine again tonight
By Ray O’Hanlon
It’s cloudy today in Manhattan, the air damp, muggy, misty with a chance of rain.
Seventeen years ago it was brilliant blue.
The anniversary of 9/11 will forever prompt a meteorological comparison.
We would give back any number of blue sky days in return for the lost and the maimed.
And for relief for those battling 9/11 related illness.
But we can’t give back, can’t take back.
So we remember.
And all Americans are remembering today.
It will occur to some that 9/11 was on a Tuesday and today is a Tuesday.
It will occur to some, especially those who lost loved ones, that seventeen years is no time at all. A drop in the bucket.
Some will remember the heroics of the ultimate bucket brigade on the burning pile at Ground Zero.
Some who were there might rather forget it.
But you can’t forget, not after 17 years and not, someday, after even seventy.
