The week following the event of September 11, 2001 was one of the most difficult periods of my life, of any of our lives. This life-changing happening created new beings out of us all. During this week, my hometown paper asked that I write an article about my experience during that horrible day. Although it is not a poem, here is "9/11: IMAGINE..." for your reading.

Imagine . . .

Cruelty beyond belief. Imagine a firing squad facing possibly as many as 50,000 people about to be killed, while you watch helplessly. Imagine pain fed into one's heart in a flash of hate. Imagine love on fire and crumbling before your eyes. Imagine . . .

What started as a typical New York morning ending abruptly in a calamity. I was reading the New York Times and listening to NBC's Today Show when a low-flying plane whizzed by my apartment building. The plane's engine groaned a heavy noise, as if charging for take off. I never bothered to look out the window to check if something may be wrong with the plane. You see, New Yorker's are accustomed to hearing every sort of noise all hours of the day and night. We are used to every irregular sound possible. Yet, only seconds later from hearing the plane charge by, a tinkling ring and a quiet boom resonated in the air. That quick moment in time changed everything, leaving that day's paper still unread.

The Today Show announced and provided images of a plane, the same groaning plane I had just heard outside my window, inside the upper floors of Tower One of the World Trade Center. I stared in total disbelief. Quickly I slipped into my shoes, grabbed the camera, and raced off to the roof. The horror I saw on the Today Show did not prepare me for what my eyes and heart were about to witness.

A massive, gaping black hole on the north side of Tower One stared back at me. It felt too unreal, worse than any disaster movie. The giant hole stood several stories high. The plane was parked inside the black hole, with its white tail fin gleaming back at me. Fire glowed on various floors, waiting to ignite from the downward cascade of fuel from the hijacked plane. I swallowed hard the panic and feared the worst. For what was yet to come I had no clue. Imagination had never prepared me for such ghastly carnage.

People were out on the streets and rooftops looking up at Tower One as smoke billowed and flames brewed into the blue sky. Toxic smoke wafted toward Brooklyn, Staten Island, and out to the Atlantic. As paper of all colors flew about, I could not forget that on any average workday these buildings contained as many as 50,000 people. Most New Yorkers are sitting at office desks hurriedly eating breakfast and coffee by 8:30 A.M. and arranging events for the workday ahead. Knowing this, my emotions could not be contained. Imagine what horror! What devastation before my eyes!

As the rooftop became more populated with the other residents a resounding gasp erupted. The entire neighborhood became a symphony of voices screaming "OH, NO! NO! GOD, NO!" Imagine thousands of people watching the second plane circling from the south and heading northward to Tower Two, slicing into the metal structure as if it were soft cheese. Exploding red balls of fire raged from all sides. More objects flew from the building as the fire and smoke enveloped all living matter inside the structure. Incinerating everything it could in a flash of intense fire. Such hell is nothing like the horror ahead, I do fear.

Millions of sheets of office paper littered the sky like birds in flight. Massive shards of concrete and various forms of metal and plastics sliced through the air as if they had no weight. Objects from the building's structure rained down from the intense impact and thunderous explosion. Long strips of metal plummeted downward. Limp fiery glows followed: fellow New Yorkers, fellow Americans, and fellow humanity blanketed in a crimson death fled wherever they could. My heart knotted into a fist of pain at this horrific sight. Despair took hold of my throat and I could not speak. How could this be? my heart asked.

As people were consoling one another, another explosion roared around the city. Seconds later the unbelievable happened. Tower Two imploded! Holy terror revealed itself in brilliant fire and smoke, in this crumbling disregard for humanity. Flying across the sky were all objects beyond one's imagination accompanied by scalding flames and deadly smoke, opulently displaying evil at its utmost. Hatred shattered our hearts while we watched in horror realizing that this barbaric action was directed against all humanity.

On a sudden impulse every New Yorker in sight reached out and embraced the person next to them. Imagine the commonality of being.

Before us stood a lone tower, Tower One. We wondered will it fall too. How could this happen? our minds demanded. Why would anyone want to be so hateful? our hearts wondered. An incredibly evil force just attacked humanity before our eyes. This hate did not and cannot destruct the loving heart of New York City or any American heart. We are a hearty breed!

Terror doubled its impact when Tower One shuddered, while a helicopter hovered near its antenna. In a moment's gasp the building imploded, shifting its entire weight to ground level in only a matter of seconds. Imagine taking a slinky held high at arm's height then letting go of it. The speed of the curled wire falling to the floor is the same swiftness these architectural monuments crumbled to dust, taking thousands of lives along with them. Imagine such unreality. On the rooftop fellow dwellers realized we had become an intimate community, seeing in each other's eyes the sadness of this moment and knowing the common pain (and sorrow). We are still unsure if the helicopter made it out in time. The massive plume of fire and smoke blinded the moment. In this awful circumstances one small hope is that they made safety.

Since the devastating destruction of the World Trade Center complex and the lives of many friends and families, I see a strong force in the faces of my fellow New Yorkers. Minutes following the disaster, the giving spirit of New York went into action. Donated clothing immediately became available for the rescue workers, water and food overloaded drop-off centers, restaurants offered free food and shelter to the policemen and firemen, crises and bereavement counseling instantly opened their doors. Every possible need of help for this tragedy became available. (Including various items for the K-9 units, because the dogs' paws needed protective wear from the sharp glass and steel at the disaster site.) Shattered hearts continued to love, offering it in abundance, in this time of dire need. Imagine unconditional love offered in abundance.

Days following the disaster a cold reality of death and destruction took hold of many people, including myself. All about Lower Manhattan memorials appeared in just about every possible location. Surrounding Washington Square Arch, where Fifth Avenue begins, is a chain-link fence roughly 40 feet square. (The Arch has been closed off to the public and in renovation for a couple of years now due to lack of funding.) This fence is now covered with oversized canvases and clothing all scribbled with words and images from New Yorkers devastated by what happened at the World Trade Center complex. At the base of this chain-link are flowers and candles, sheets with various prayers and religious images of all religions, photographs of missing family members, flags of various nations, and many thank-yous to the rescue workers working in horrific conditions barely a mile away.

At Union Square Park, a five-minute walk northeast from the Arch, George Washington still rides his horse toward victory, but beneath the stallion's hoofs the plaza is blanketed with memorials. Candles, flowers, flags, altars where people sit and ponder their hearts. A gauntlet of t-shirts mounted onto a fence displays the multicultural and the multi-religious composition of this New York City and of our country. Inside the fenced area are two long rows of multicolored roses representing the Twin Towers, with a loving note from one of the city's Methodist churches. Missing persons posters crowd for space on scattered kiosks, benches are crowded with faces bewildered by what happened that Tuesday morning, yet all who gather in the park come out of a human need to be embraced by the community . . . a true characteristic of the City.

Imagine all along the small streets of the Village wall after wall postered with images of missing family members. Hundreds of posters cover the sides of apartment buildings and hospitals all about the city. Imagine a small bundle of flowers and a note reading, "We will miss you, Julie, and you will always be with us." A candle burns next to the door Julie would have entered several times any given day in her life in the city. Along the entrance to New School for Social Research, imagine a line of wooden police horses used for barricades curtained with more poster images of missing people from the neighborhood, from the city, from our hearts. From people where personal love is now lost forever, except as a memory in the heart of grief. Pain grows within each of us as we stroll along the streets and avenues of this beautiful city. It is unavoidable to not pass a shrine of some sort outside a police station, a firehouse, or outside a private residence. You have no choice but to see the lost, while remember the heartbreak of the actual moment. Holding back tears is no option and the pain tremendous.

Along the Henry Hudson Parkway, a two-direction six-lane highway stretching the length of Manhattan Island, people have gathered with signs and flags offering cheers and applause to the vehicles leaving and returning to the disaster site. It is wonderfully assuring and uplifting to see such action by my community, by the town I have called home for twenty-three years. New Yorkers have heart and offer it back in major kindness to those who share their love and ask for nothing in return. Such is the heroism of humanity sharing their broken hearts and love unconditionally, a rebuke to the senseless action of those hijackers at that world-changing moment.

Since that morning the tears have not stopped flowing. That emotional frog we all know so well has taken residence in my throat, refusing to take leave. My sleep has been irregular, and the dreams often frightfully vivid and disturbing. I lie awake the early hours of the morning pondering the horror my eyes and heart experienced that Tuesday morning. It is not just the fear about terrorism that disturbs our sleep but it is also the images seared into our realm of possibility by that horrific day. Imagine images like in a Hieronymus Bosch painting of Middle Ages confusion and chaos, filled with panic. Imagine them endlessly repeating. Imagine the pain of love lost.

I am lucky to be alive, at least I am this time around. But where will it end? And the speculation of the hidden enemy of those who attacked our hearts, our city, and their religions which fuel these fires of hatred. I have never understood hate and evil, I have always accepted you and me as the same (the you and me meaning all humankind). All religions claim they are based on one foundation: love. How could that love fuel such hatred? Is the destruction of the World Trade Center complex the world-flash of the coming future?

Yet we must bear in mind that this horror could have been infinitely worse. That same day, within minutes I am sure, experts from the Centers for Disease Control were at ground zero testing its atmosphere for biological and chemical weapons. These weapons of mass destruction remain a possibility. Imagine.

I will remain in New York City where my partner and I have lived for many years, and where our friends continue to live and work. Nothing can make any of us leave our homes on this island, this great city, other than a governmental directive for evacuation. Come visit our city and live your dreams. Do not let terrorism prevent you from living! If you do, then they, the terrorists, will have won. Imagine a life without love. Imagine . . . .