We all probably remember where we were that day....
In 1968 tragedy struck us with two assassinations--Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.
In the early evening hours of April 4, a Thursday, Martin Luther King was shot and killed by James Earl Ray in Memphis Tennessee. I was out back shooting hoops when my mother called out to me. Friday morning at Broughton was full of uncertainty....
And in the early morning hours of June 5, I remember my sister waking me up to tell me about Bobby being gunned down by a Palestinian/Jordanian as the Senator and Presidential Candidate walked through the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles shortly after midnight California time. It was a little after 3:00AM our time in Raleigh, but I stayed up through the early morning hours listening to the radio with her.
My thoughts that night drifted back to a November Friday in 1963 when I was returning from a sixth period Thanksgiving assembly in the auditorium at Martin Jr. High to Mr. Howard's English class, only to find that someone in the principal's office had apparently left the intercom on--something about a motorcade...there were chuckles, then a few girls started to cry. John Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1:30PM Eastern Time. Walter Cronkite was tearful.
Three assassinations in five years....
There were other tragedies along the way. The most striking to me was the Challenger Disaster in ' 86 (I was out on my deck with my two dogs when my wife called)
Until September 11, 2001....
On that Tuesday morning I was at a coffee shop at Celebration Six Forks Shopping Center when the local news program on the overhead television screen was suddenly interupted by live coverage of the first plane striking the World Trade Center. I wrote the following verse later that afternoon and haven't tweaked it since, wanting to pass my unbroken thoughts at that time onto my daughter and grand-kids:
​She Who Went the Way
Silky wisp of furtive glance;
Glowing in ashen tunnel
A fading beacon reflecting on somber, hollow faces,
Casting shadow on fright and flee.
Ardent burn, sutured debris,
Beckoning call of ample fuse
To strike the wick, to flame the liar,
To perjure the day of the sordid few.
Gaits of vary, clamoring, shuffling;
Trembling of reach, stretching, grasping.
Nefarious day arisen to track the launch
And squelch the ruse.
Awning vile and wretch of stone;
Clatter and tumble and dome of mortar
And billow of cloud. The day unfurled,
The gaping wound, black in belly and ripe with soul.
Spurning wash of human pallor,
Hallowed turf, sacred womb,
Rife with passion
And no less mortal.
In Requiem
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
