As Time Goes By by Robin Janney

The New Colossus

By Emma Lazarus, 1883

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I am struggling today, as many are. Many have more reason than I.

I lost no one I knew seventeen years ago. I was a couch observer, crying as people I did not know plummeted to their death as they tried to escape the horror of the burning building. Shocked beyond words, beyond tears as the Twin Towers fell. I'm not even sure I registered the attack on the Pentagon that day, or the crash in the Pennsylvania field, until much later.

What can I say to honor them today? What can I do? I feel compelled to do something, say something.

They are strangers to me. But I mourn for them as though they are family.

Perhaps on this one day, this is what we are. Family. Whether we lost someone we knew or not. Because we all lost something that day. Innocence, peace, security.

I cannot fathom how it has been seventeen years since...wasn't it just yesterday?