After 9/11
Posted on | September 7, 2010 | No Comments
I have been deeply concerned by the wave of bigotry and hatred that has emerged around the controversy over the interfaith-sponsored Islamic Center in lower Manhattan. The Center arises from the vision of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a long-time religious leader in New York City. Having read Imam Rauf’s book, What’s Right with Islam is What’s Right with America, I am distressed that we have lost sight of the point of his whole mission, which is reconciliation and peace. Here is a poem reflecting on this miasma of grief and anger.
After 9/11
That hole in the ground
created from the chaos of our aspirations,
That hole in the earth
inebriate with septic lamentations
lanced from bursting hearts of mercy,
That hole in our heart
that lets our blood flood
lifeless out upon the sand and stone,
This hole in humanity
through which we see the black infinity of death,
This hole reveals
translucently
the holiness of life.
Comments
Leave a Reply
William J. Everett
In my teaching career I authored eight books and numerous articles in social ethics and religion. After over thirty years of academic work — in Germany, India, and South Africa as well as in the United States — I wanted to turn my hand to a poetically written novel to probe the issues of ecological and human reconciliation.
When I am not writing, I create furniture for worship settings. For more about my work, go to www.WisdomsTable.net, where you will also find galleries of artwork by my wife Sylvia, whose ancestors were the original inspiration for Red Clay, Blood River. READ MORE...
Red Clay Blood River
Red Clay, Blood River is a story told by Earth about two brothers from Germany and an enslaved South African woman whose lives bind together America’s “Trail of Tears” and South Africa’s simultaneous “Great Trek” of 1838.