The Alliance The Petition The Comments The Index The Coalition The Journal The Institute

Spread the love

Grieving Angel


Danny Boy

A beautiful rendition of the song that so powerfully recalls
the unbreakable bond of love across the oceans of time and space.

September 11th Murals

“From handball courts to building walls, New Yorkers have filled neighborhoods across the city with heartfelt tributes to those lost. Some murals have weathered the years, while new works bring the art of mourning to the present.”

We All Stand Tall

This great video tribute is even more evocative now than when it was written ten years ago by Ray Powers, a TTA supporter from the beginning, and Jeff Tacopina, his lifelong friend, who became a firefighter in honor of the brother he lost on 9/11/2001. It is a powerful reminder of the spirit of unity that was our only candle in the darkness after the attacks.


“Dirge Without Music”

— Edna St. Vincent Millay

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.
Crowned with lilies and with laurel they go: but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains – but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Since 2005, we have included “Dirge Without Music” in our yearly memorial page because it conveys the enormous, reverberating, personal loss of September 11, 2001. At the Yankee Stadium Prayer Vigil, 12 days after the tragedy, when the final death toll was still not known, one of the speakers, Rabbi Marc Gellman put that same grief into words this way:

On that day — on that day, 6,000 people did not die. On that day, one person died 6,000 times. We must understand this and all catastrophes in such a way, for big numbers only numb us to the true measure of mass murder. We say 6,000 died, or we say six million died and the saying and the numbers explain nothing except how much death came in how short a time. Such numbers sound more like scores or ledger entries than deaths of human beings. 

The real horror of that day lies not in its bigness, but in its smallness. In the small searing death of one person 6,000 times, and that one person was not a number. That person was our father or our mother or our son or our daughter or our grandpa or grandma or brother or sister or cousin or uncle or aunt or friend or lover, our neighbor, our co-worker, the woman who delivered our mail or the guy who put out our fires and arrested the bad guys in our town. And the death of each and every one of them alone would be worthy of such a gathering and such a grief… 


New York State of Mind

Never Forget

There’s A Hole in the World

Clydesdales’ Super Bowl Tribute Tribute

In Memoriam Sept 11 Facebook Page

The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center Facebook Page

World Trade Center Remember Facebook Page

Click on the angel to hear the hauntingly prophetic song that inspired the naming of the “Windows on the World” restaurant.

Click here for the story behind the “Angel of Grief” | Click here for the full transcript of the Yankee Stadium Prayer Vigil.


loading


This website is not as scalable as newer sites are and is best viewed on full-size monitors.
Copyright 2006-2023 | The Twin Towers Alliance | Contact: 212-568-0207 | rebuild@twintowersalliance.com