Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: Compass We marked four winds by an acrid smoke, Smoke first black, then white, Driven across East River and New York Harbor, Carried east across Brooklyn Heights, then south over Staten Island, Out over the Narrows, down the shore, up Long Island, out to sea, Carried north over Central Park, over Harlem, Washington Heights, Over and into the Bronx, over and into Connecticut beyond, Carried west over Hudson, raking up and down New Jersey Palisades, Fort Lee to Bayonne. Over all was blown this marvel, a dark compass in the sky. We saw it from a hill in Green-Wood, by Tiffany?s tomb, Acorns, catkins, catalpa fruit littering the manicured grass, Along with charred memos, letters, and newsprint All covered, all covered with thankless ash? In this ash, ashes, the ordinary become SOS, the truth of what was And what is. Upon the ashes of that work Is our work? Begun when theirs ended? In smoke and ash, Twisted steel, exploded glass, When our towers, one after the other, Shuddered and collapsed, Exhausted. ??? Engine 205 Those who know that work is love know that this work is great love, work done in the face of death in defiance, in respect, true work, true love, sacrifice-- lives for love, living for love. Ladder 118 How will DNA tell us Whose hand grasped axe to free trapped Clerks in elevator shafts? Or which hand steered fatal jet? Or whose feet bore the weight of Boots, belt, air tank and helmet Up and down flights of stairs and Into the lighted pyre. Will the DNA tell us Who loved to dance, though he danced Badly?Or which plotted to Undo dancer in mid-dance? Or who, could he speak once more, Would surely ask, ?May I have The next dance?? ??? Restless and Unsleeping I thought it raged somewhere else? Twister hop scotching Kansas, Flood drowning Minnesota? Always, always, somewhere else. But it was racing across Cloudless skies, down calm East Coast, As arsonist, as human Bomb, as some demented god. And from a cell phone inside We got our answer to Where, When he said, The fire is here. ??? The Blind Man?s Guide There is no path; there is no road, That we have made that leads away From doors in flame, from glass-shard floors, Guide dog no use but to stay close. But to presume a path will appear, First to blind feet, then to scorched hands, Each step borne by that presumption? That foot will find fall after fall, Descending the obscure staircase Long minute after long minute Until a familiar embrace, Merely imagined up to now, Saying you are home? Brings you home. ??? Labore est orare To retrieve the fallen, To remove the wreckage, And leave, leaving this field Better than we found it. ??? Harbor Out the office, hale and clean pressed or broken limbed, ash covered into a waiting boat, one of hundreds tugs, tankers, water taxies, ferries evacuating downtown Manhattan out from under the smoke, going in by radar at high speed, Staten Island Ferry up to 800 rpm carrying 6,000 passengers one way -- out -- urgent, determined, clear that nobody should be sitting down that we couldn't think of any place else we'd rather be F-16's knife through breaks in the black billowing close down over harbor -- We didn't know whose they were -- and on the Hudson damned if it wasn't the Half Moon just sitting there in the haze -- almost 400 years to the day Hudson first penetrated New York Harbor -- a replica with nothing to do on busiest day in harbor since Melville. ??? Barges The dream, the disturbing part of it, was it presented itself As presentment? Two rows of barges longer than the stadium Slowly moving from Manhattan Leaving a lane in between for her ferry, Heading in the opposite direction to terminal, Each barge pushed by a tug, each tug with a wheelhouse, In each wheelhouse the same silent skipper chomping On cigar, eyes focused straight ahead, beyond The wreckage? When it was a memory of something She?d seen in the papers. Bargemen He said, At first the barges were filled with rebar, Which always had some cement attached. There were crows and seagulls everywhere. I didn?t know crows ate cement. ??? I thought I?d read more? I took this job so a young man Wouldn?t have to hold Such memories? Was only my imagination. ??? Ferryman And again, thought I'd dreamt I'd gone over to see how they were doing, the ones I'd ferried in from Jersey -- ants on a hill digging, digging, digging -- but was daydreaming over something I'd read. Thought I knew their names, they mine. It was ebb tide, my grasp loosening, even the smoke getting sucked out to sea. ??? Steamfitter Steamfitter says he used to line up pilings he was driving with twin towers. Harder now, that hard job, harder ― harder but doable. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story8616.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-11-04 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 129.174.27.131