New York

* * *

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

The telephone rang. I rolled out of bed

and zigzaged my way to the nearest telephone

about five feet away. Hello, I said.

Do you have the TV on? The voice on the other end

wanted to know. No, I matter-of-factly replied.

Turn it on! The caller urged. OK, I said,

my voice still thick with sleep.

I walked to the nearest television -- in the family room
across the hallway about 12 feet away.

I turned the TV on and Dan Rather was on Channel 9

and Tom Brokaw on Channel 4.

My brain was still in sleep mode,

and having heard about an earthquake the day before,

I went back to the telephone and asked,

Is this about the earthquake?

No, said the voice on the other end.

A plane just hit the Pentagon! he informed me.

By the way, who am I speaking with? I wanted to know.

It’s Fred! He said.

Fred and his wife Diane are dear friends;

I shook my husband Karl out of bed and

I went back to the television room.

I stayed with CBS and Rather and I saw
a tall building engulfed in fire and figures
flying out of windows from high altitudes.
Suddenly a plane hit the building behind
the burning building.

The clock on the wall clicked 5:55.

Thus began September 11, 2001

at one home in Po’ipu, Kaua’i, Hawai’i,

some 5,000 miles away from the scene of infamy.

After watching half hour of unthinkable terror

I called Fred to thank him for thinking of us.

I went back to the television,

this time in the living room

where Karl and I, together and separately,

watched the attack on America,

hour after hour, day and night

during the painful week that followed.

The sadness that 9/11 brought

is lodged deep in my heart,

And my eyes still fill up with tears

when images from that day

replay themselves in my thoughts.

Karl and I lived on Governors Island

across the southern tip of Manhattan

for 4-1/2 years when Karl was serving

in the United States Coast Guard.

We watched at close range the building of the Twin Towers

which unconscionable acts of terrorism

have demolished, marring beyond words and belief

New York City’s distinctive landscape.

Catherine Lo © 2001
* * *

TO NEW YORK CITY WITH LOVE

The attack on America on September 11, 2001,

immediately brought to mind September 11, 1992,

when Hurricane ‘Iniki devastated Kaua'i.

Another 9-1-1, I thought, and I cried!

This is a sad and painful time

for America in a far-reaching scale.

And Hawai’i will suffer economically

from the aftermath of the attacks on New York City.

Americans on Kaua’i are farthest from ground zero,

but our sadness and pain are deep and real.

We lived on Governors Island,

across the southern tip of Manhattan

several years ago -- from 1968-1973.

Battery Park, where the Twin Towers stood,

was only a five-minute-ferry-ride away.

During our 4-1/2 years in New York,

we were at Battery Park often to catch

the ferry to Staten Island, or the bus

or the subway to mid-town or uptown Manhattan,

or as we passed on our way to Wall Street or Chinatown.

The Twin Towers were not open to visitors

when we left New York on April 1, 1973,

but we saw them being built,

and they were near completion when we left.

Our sadness and pain are real, indeed.

And we are moved to tears as we see the devastation

on television ... as we watch volunteers digging

into piles of rubble looking for survivors ...

as we see people on the streets of New York

looking for loved ones.

But as Leonard Pitts Jr. of the Miami Herald

says with conviction and courage,

"We'll go forward from this moment."

With the grace and mercy of God.

Catherine Lo 9.16.01

* * *

Last night
I sat at my desk past midnight
until my hand ached
from racing with my busy heart

The melancholy from September 11
prevails like a cold winter wind
freezing layers of questions
quarried in my busy heart

Lord
the fire at Ground Zero continues to burn
and October has brought only added doubt
more grief and deeper sorrow as America
fights in Afghanistan and America
battles a heinous enemy that continues
a biological war on American soil

Season our soul with courage and strength
and remind us again and again to believe
that good will triumph over evil
Amen
(2001)

Photographs ... and more photographs ...
from years and years ago ...
photographs I haven't seen in decades ...
Why do they surface today?

Here I stand on the boardwalk
at Rockaway Beach near Rockaway Park
with the vast Atlantic Ocean behind me.

As a seventeen-year-old, newly arrived from Hawaii,
and on my way to Greenville, Pennsylvania,
to start my freshman year at Thiel College,
I was starting an exciting chapter in my young life
in this dazzling city of New York.

When I posed at the observatory
of the Empire State Building ...
with Uncle John, Dad's brother ...
before starting a summer job
as a chambermaid at the Del Mar Hotel,
owned and operated by a dear friend
of Uncle John ... one George Topper ...
little did I know that the telescope
that brought the city closer to sight
was a symbol of sorts.

It was the 4th of July when I boarded the plane
at Lihue on the island of Kauai, Hawaii,
off to a distant land I never dreamed of.
An Independence Day with double meaning
for a teenager in search of education.

These photographs bring back memories
of years filled with the excitement
and the expectations of youth.
And memory magnifies those magical moments ...

It was a time when I had no knowledge that Betty,
who supervised my work, and Louie,
the hotel custodian whose face was always red
from drinking too much ... as I learned later in life ...
were Germans making their home
in a new land through the good graces
of a Jewish hotelier who employed them
during the summer months
when the wealthy vacationed at Rockaway.

Today ... I wonder where Betty and Louie,
with their thick German accent, spent their winters.
And I wonder when they left their homeland.

I know that Uncle John and Mr. Topper
wintered in Florida.
Del Mar Hotel closed after Labor Day
and opened again to welcome annual guests
when the summer sun warmed the beach
at Rockaway just right for swimming.
(05/28/2000)

Men with graying temples
attired in gray or blue suits and pastel shirts
sit on hard benches
with bulging black briefcases.
They are deep in thought, cross-legged,
puzzling over crosswords.

Girls with printed micro-minis under dark maxi coats
munch on slices of pepperoni pizza
their finger sticky and smelling
tomato sauce and Mozzarella.

Long-haired boys and young men
in striped bell-bottom pants
lean against available walls
their eye balls dancing
with mini skits that pass.

Matrons in bright fineries
with their hair piled up in pompodours
cover their heads with red nets
to keep away the naughty wind.

In the winter men wearing furry black Cossack hats
warm their throats with black coffee
in tan paper cups.

They all ride the yellow ferry
that ply between Manhattan and Staten Island.
It may be the AMERICAN LEGION,
Or, the MARY MURRAY,
Or, the PVT. JOSEPH F. MERRELL,
Or, the JOHN F. KENNEDY.

New Yorkers in many colors
hurry to get on and off the yellow boat,
At the stern or at the bow,
At port or at starboard,
The colors blend in harmony,
like the colors of the rainbow,
and they are beautiful.

5.13.69 | 3.9.07