September, September

I think this month will be hard for me for quite some time.

Six years ago. Six years ago I found myself marked, compelled to think and to speak about whatI would prefer to leave in silence. I am afraid to speak, I open my mouth in terror because my words cannot-- words cannot-- even now, here, in this sentence cannot say or be or do what is needed. I would pray for silence, but I am not allowed. I speak in terror, knowing I cannot do what I must. That I must do what I cannot.

Six years ago the eleventh of September was a Tuesday. I remember the English class I had that Tuesday, in the shocked afternoon that followed the clear, terrible morning. I sat in a classroom devoted to words on a day that words cannot approach, a day that words must approach, even when to do so is unholy.

Six years later, tommorrow, I will go to a Tuesday afternoon class devoted to words, once again on the eleventh of September, and I will teach. I was reminded today that most of my students were twelve years old in 2001-- children, only children! What do they remember, what can they remember? How do I stand before them, teaching them language, on the day I would devote to silence?

I sent the final copy of my essay on memorials and the World Trade Center to the Wallace Stevens Journal today, today the tenth of September-- that date sounds almost edenic in its innocence! But my uncle died yesterday, on the ninth, in the quietly unseen space of his own home. Et in Arcadia Ego. And my cousin's long-planned wedding follows hard behind.

The wedding will follow the funeral. My twelve year olds are now in college. I teach and publish and live.