Five Years Later Two Contemplations on Dust--National Poetry Month 2026

 Note--This blog post first appeared in 2021.

As common as dust, my Grandma Mona used to say by which she meant as ubiquitous as sun rises and death.  Despite the most diligent attempts to defeat it, it settles everywhere because it floats invisibly, save in a ray of sunshine through a window. We inhale it with every breath we take.  In my less-than-tidy study it lies thick on every surface that is not touched daily.  But other than in that Bible verse cited at funerals and Woody Guthrie ballads precious little attention has been paid to this commonplace fact of life by writers and poets.

Here are two who noticed.

                Danusha Laméris

Danusha Laméris was born in 1971 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is the author of The Moons of August (Autumn House Press) in 2014 which was selected as the 2013 Autumn House Press Poetry Prize, and Bonfire Opera (University of Pittsburgh Press, in 2020. She teaches poetry and lives in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains in coastal California.

Dust

It covers everything, fine powder,

the earth’s gold breath falling softly

on the dark wood dresser, blue ceramic bowls,

picture frames on the wall. It wafts up

from canyons, carried on the wind,

on the wings of birds, in the rough fur of animals

as they rise from the ground. Sometimes it’s copper,

sometimes dark as ink. In great storms,

it even crosses the sea. Once

when my grandmother was a girl,

a strong gale lifted red dust from Africa

and took it thousands of miles away

to the Caribbean where people swept it

from their doorsteps, kept it in small jars,

reminder of that other home.

Gandhi said, “The seeker after truth

should be humbler than the dust.”

Wherever we go, it follows.

I take a damp cloth, swipe the windowsills,

the lamp’s taut shade, run a finger

over the dining room table.

And still, it returns, settling in the gaps

between the floorboards, gilding the edges

of unread books. What could be more loyal,

more lonely, and unsung?

—Danusha Laméris

From Bonfire Opera by Danusha Laméris, © 2020.

What goes up, must come down.  Dust enveloped Manhattan after the Twin Towers collapsed on 9/11.

The Old Man has frequently inflicted his verse on the readers of this blog.  This poem is one of several he wrote over the years marking the anniversaries of the 9/11 attacks.  This one appeared nearly 25 years ago.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

September 9, 2011, Crystal Lake, Illinois

 

The ash and dust, they say,

            rose as high as the skirts

            of the ionosphere.

Prevailing winds pushed it

            across oceans and around the world.

 

Most has sifted by now to the earth.

Some orbits still,

motes descending

            now and again.

 

My study is a cluttered mess.

Dust lays on any unattended

horizontal surface,

makes webs in corners,

balls in computer wire rats nests,

devils under bookshelves.

 

That speck, that one there,

            the one by the stapler,

            just might be what’s left

            of the Dominican cleaner

            who left her children

            with their Abuela

            and went to work

            in the sky

            only to be vaporized.

 

Hola, señora.

It is an honor to meet you.

 

—Patrick Murfin

The 23rd Street Fire was FDNY’s Worst Day Until The Twin Towers Fell

  

The body of one of 12 FDNY firefighters killed is removed through the 23rd street drugstore entrance of the deadly fire. 

On October 17, 1966 members of New York Fire Department (FDNY) responded to a roaring blaze in the Flatiron District.  Twelve of them didn’t get out alive.  In the annals of the Department the 23rd Street Fire was the deadliest day until the World Trade Center Towers collapsed on September 11, 2001.

The  fire was first reported at 9:36 pm at the American Art Galleries in a four-story brownstone at 7 East 22nd Street.  When the firefighters first pulled up the intensity of the smoke and heat made it impossible to enter through the 22nd Street side of the building.  Instead, they attacked the conflagration through Wonder Drug located at 6 East 23rd Street which backed up on the art store. 

What they did not know was the gallery, which also dealt in art supplies removed a load-bearing wall in its basement to expand its storage area to 35 feet underneath the drug store.  Highly flammable lacquer, paint, and finished wood frames were stored in the basement.   The fire likely originated in the basement, although a cause was never determined.

  

A diagram shows how the removal of a load-bearing basement wall to expand the art store storage led to the collapse of the drugstore floor above.

Several firefighters, mostly from Engine Company 18 and Ladder Company 7 led by two chiefs and Lieutenants from each company were battling intense flames on the first floor of the drug store when the floor suddenly collapsed under them.  Ten plunged into basement and two who clung to the floor were killed in a flash-over fire.  Twelve men perished almost immediately.

Later investigation showed that the fire in the basement had been roaring for more than an hour charring and weakening the wood floor beams which reduced their size and strength.  A 15-by-35-foot section of the floor collapsed at 10:39 pm, one hour and three minutes after the initial alarm was transmitted. 

As firefighters battled the blaze and attempted to rescue their comrades, it became a five alarm box fire with scores of trucks and crews responding.  It still took 14 hours to retrieve the remains.

 

Killed were:

    Deputy Chief Thomas A. Reilly, FDNY 3rd Division

    Battalion Chief Walter J. Higgins, FDNY 7th Battalion

    Lt. John J. Finley, FDNY Ladder Co. 7

    Lt. Joseph Priore, FDNY Engine Co. 18

    Firefighter John G. Berry, FDNY Ladder Co. 7

    Firefighter James V. Galanaugh, FDNY Engine Co. 18

    Firefighter Rudolph F. Kaminsky, FDNY Ladder Co. 7

    Firefighter Joseph Kelly, FDNY Engine Co. 18

    Firefighter Carl Lee, FDNY Ladder Co. 7

    Firefighter William F. McCarron, FDNY 3rd Division

    Firefighter Daniel L. Rey, FDNY Engine Co. 18

    Firefighter Bernard A. Tepper, FDNY Engine Co. 18

The dead reflected the make-up of the Department—three of the officers and four of the firefighters were ethnic Irish.  One Lieutenant was Italian and one fireman Polish.  Three of the youngest, including one still on probation, were Blacks who were just being brought into the fire service to significant resistance under political pressure and a Federal discrimination suit.  Perhaps in death they finally achieved full acceptance.

 

 Fire trucks carried the bodies of ten of the dead down 5th Avenue to packed funeral services.  The public lined the street and 10,000 firefighter from the all over the country honored the victims.

10,000 firefighters lined Fifth Avenue on October 21, 1966, as ten firetrucks carried ten coffins to separate services at St. Thomas Protestant Episcopal Church and at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  Firefighters came from as far away as the United Kingdom, Anchorage, Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Northeast United States, and a group of 500 firefighters from Boston.

Regular annual commemorations are still held at the firehouses of the victims and sometimes at the fire site which is marked with a commemorative plaque.  Members of their families are joined by current firefighters, none of whom after all these years now personally remembers the dead. 

 

 

Twenty-one Years—A Dreaded Anniversary With Murfin Rant and Verse

Two beacons shone from the site of the World Trade Center Towers in New York City on anniversaries before the new towers were finally built.

Note—Last year, twenty years after America’s most traumatic experience the memory of the 8/11 attacks was everywhere—news specials and documentaries all over broadcast and cable, newspaper front pages, special commemorative magazines at the grocery check-out, made-for-TV movies, new books both serious and refloating conspiracy theories.  This year, not so much, although it will be noted on your evening news and the annual observances at the Twin Towers site, Pentagon, and that Pennsylvania field where a passenger uprising against hijackers brought down a potential flying bomb.  The death of Queen Elizabeth will still dominate the news. People will remember but a whole generation has grown up for which it is mere history. 

The Wisconsin 9/11 Memorial in Kewaskum opened for the 20th anniversary last year amid the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.

Yesterday as my wife Kathy and I were driving home from a short vacation in Door County, Wisconsin we noted a sign by the highway about the Wisconsin 9/11 Memorial in Kewaskum.  We had never heard of it but despite our tendency to stop and markers and monuments we drove past without turning off the road.  We wondered idly why a monument would be built there, in that unlikely spot.  Perhaps some local fire fighters went to help in the weeks following the New York catastrophe or someone from the town was killed in the fire and collapse.   Once home I learned that the Monument was dedicated just last summer.  It was inspired by a local father who lost a daughter, Andrea Haberman.  With the support of the local Town council a proposal was made to the 9/11 Commission and after some time the local Arts Council was one of the organizations granted a twisted section of the North Tower support beams.  Scores of such donations were made for the creation of local monuments.  I wonder how many will get off busy Highway 57 to make the drive to see it.

This year I am again marking the anniversary of the events with a post that first appeared a few years ago.

There is no escaping it.  A scab is pulled off a barely healed wound.  Opportunists and con men scramble to once again jump to wrong conclusions, scapegoat strawmen, and bend the occasion to serve their ambitions and blood lust.

I dread it every year.  But it will not leave me or, I suspect, any of us alone.

But as horrible as those images etched indelibly in my mind are, is it wrong to say that I miss the days just after?  Remember?  For a little while Americans loved each other, found comfort in each other’s arms.  Divisions melted.  We were united by grief, and yes, even some righteous anger.  Even the world mourned for us.  Some of us even dared hope that the sense of oneness, community, and solidarity could change us.  Maybe even last.

Of course, it didn’t.  Weeks went by and we went charging off in different directions—drumming up wars on people who had nothing to do with the attack, cooking up wild conspiracy theories that confirmed our own personal demons and loathing’s, scapegoating the convenient and the weak, attacking the patriotism of anyone who did not wear a flag pin 24 hours a day.

And now, multiple wars later, a Depression, the election of a Black President then his replacement with a malignant narcissist and common charlatan, the ascent of a kind of political madness, the rise of entitled oligarchy, immigration panic and the rise of fascist White nationalism Americans hate each other.  Really hate.  Can’t stand to talk with each other, be in the same room, breath the same air.  Rage is the order of the day.  White men strut through malls and fast food emporiums with military style weapons slung over their shoulder daring anyone to look cross eyed at them and in their heart of hearts hoping that someone will challenge them.  Looking for any spark to set off a Civil War.

Years later America is shattered and American despise each other.

Black kids who look like they could be trouble are pumped full of holes with monotonous regularity.  Half-starved immigrant children are torn from their parents, caged, and brutalized. In some churches, mosques, and temples hate thy neighbor is the daily message.  We are sliced and diced apart every which way—by race, language, religion, politics, age, gender, and who we choose to love.

The once revered first responder heroes of 9/11 have been transformed into greedy union thugs by politicians.  Police departments have been transformed from serve and protect into little armies to quash the slightest suggestion of unrest or dissent.

Women and their health have become more than ever political plaything, and the objects of Great Lie campaigns worthy of anything by Goebbels.   Transgender humans have become prey righteous hunters.

Guns still don’t kill people—the increasing mounds of bodies are felled by some kind of mysterious magic.

We struggled through the Coronavirus pandemic with hundreds of thousands dead due to feckless disregard for human life and simple precautions like wearing masks have become political flash points in which store clerks are murdered for doing their jobs.

So much for my rant.

Looking back, I have grappled with 9/11 in my poetry more than any other single subject.  And how that poetry evolved speaks to what has happened to us. 

Photos of the dead and missing in New York posted on a makeshift memorial wall.

The first one was written for a one year anniversary program and included in my collection We Build Temples in the Heart in 2004.

The Dead of 9/11 Leave a Message on George W’s Voice Mail

 

The Dead cry out—

 

It is not lonely here!

            They come by the scores

                        and by the thousands

                        every day,

                        as they have always come,

                        each arrival here

                        a wrenching loss below.

            They come as they have always come,

                        each death the completion of a journey,

                        the closing of a hoop of life.

            And we welcome each of them.

 

But we are not lonely here.

            We do not wander silent corridors

                        our footsteps echoing,

                        yearning for a voice.

            We are not lonely

                        for we are the Dead

                        and we are everywhere

                        united in that last breath

                        and in eternity.

 

But You—

 

You make haste to fill the unfillable,

            to send us more,

            many more,

            out of their own time

            as we were out of ours,

            yanked here in violence and hatred.

 

Let them be.

They will come in their own time.

 

We who know death

            do not cry out for revenge.

 

We are not lonely here.

 

—Patrick Murfin

 

 

In 2007 came one of those serendipitous coming together of calendar occasions

 

September 12, 2007

The Day After 9/11—Ramadan and Rosh Hashanah

 

Wheels turning within wheels—

     an astrolabe,

          Tycho’s observatory,

               gears in some fantastic machine,

                    electrons—atoms—molecules,

                        moons—planets—stars—galaxies—universes.

 

Today, just today—

     Point A on Wheel X, spinning urgently,

     comes to kiss Point B on Wheel Y,

     rotating on its own good time,

     for just a nano-second

     having just brushed by

     Point C on cog Z.

 

These precise events will come again,

    I suppose—

     you do the math if you wish.

 

But if I wore stars on a pointed hat,

    I might conclude that there was something

    beyond mere physics at work here.

 

Call it an omen, if you wish,

     or the flat hand of something Greater

     slapping us upside our

     merely mortal heads

     and scolding us—

               “Spin as you will,

                you spin not alone.”

 

—Patrick Murfin

 

On the tenth anniversary I was moved by reading that the dust from the Twin Towers was still orbiting the stratosphere and slowly, year by year, falling to earth.

 

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

September 9, 2011, Crystal Lake, Illinois

 

The ash and dust, they say,

rose as high as the skirts

of the ionosphere.

Prevailing winds pushed it

            across oceans and around the world.

 

Most has sifted by now to the earth.

Some orbits still,

motes descending

            now and again.

 

My study is a cluttered mess.

Dust lays on any unattended

horizontal surface,

makes webs in corners,

balls in computer wire rat nests,

devils under bookshelves.

 

That speck, that one there,

            the one by the stapler,

            just might be what’s left

            of the Dominican cleaner

            who left her children

            with their Abuela

            and went to work

            in the sky

            only to be vaporized.

 

Hola, señora.

It is an honor to meet you.

 

—Patrick Murfin

 

 

Nine years ago, I recalled that 9/11 was etched in the memories of Chileans as the date of their own national catastrophe—the 1973 coup d’état that overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende and ushered in a brutal dictatorship.  The United States government was more than just complicit in that.

 

Two Anniversaries

September 11, 2013

 

I’ll ante my 3,000 vaporized on a crystal morning.

You’ll see me your 3,000 homeless ghosts.

I’ll give you my crumbling Towers and billowing ash.

You will call with the bombed rubble of La Moneda.

 

I’ll throw in a stack of terrorists with beards and turbans.

You’ll count out freckled faces, crew cuts, and black fedoras.

 

Let’s show our cards and see who loses.

 

—Patrick Murfin