September 11

Nobody sees it happening, but the architecture of our time

Is becoming the architecture of the next time. And the dazzle

Of light on the waters is as nothing beside the changes

Wrought therein, just as our waywardness means

Nothing against the steady pull of things over the edge.

Nobody can stop the flow, but nobody can start it either.

Time slips by; our sorrows do not turn into poems,

And what is invisible stays that way. Desire has fled,

Leaving only a trace of perfume in its wake,

And so many people we loved have gone,

And no voice comes from outer space, from the folds

Of dust and carpets of wind to tell us that this

Is the way it was meant to happen, that if only we knew

How long the ruins would last we would never complain.”

Mark Strand, from “The Next Time” [Blizzard of One; Knopf, 1998.]

[The picture posted here, an image showing the New York city skyline, with the absent towers reflected in the ocean, originally appeared on the excellent but long ago deleted blog of a New York literary agent pseudonymously named Miss Snark. The original may have appeared in a New York-local magazine—I will happily credit its creator if pointed in the right direction.]