September 11th:  We Will Never Forget

Box-cutters became weapons of mass destruction on that sunny September morning
Extremely evil men plotted, conspired, waited and then acted without warning
We need to remember September 11th because they started this war
Let our anger be toward them and pray there isn't more

Children, loved ones, friends and families gather to remember that day
As names of the victims are read, we cry and pray

Stirring, gentle music is played at each site, reflecting the mood
WE WILL NEVER FORGET is shown and spoken: it's America's attitude

We're determined to win:  this war will end when we choose.

--bro. tim pickl, September 11th, 2004 A.D.

note:  [ 9 lines....11 words in each line ]

Return to Tim Pickl's Poetry Page

Text of President George W. Bush Address 
at Washington Memorial Service 9/14/01

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The following is the text of an
address given on Friday by President Bush at a memorial 
service for the hundreds confirmed dead and the thousands 
still missing from Tuesday's attacks in New York and 
Washington:


We are here in the middle hour of our grief. So many have
suffered so great a loss, and today we express our nation's
sorrow. We come before God to pray for the missing and the
dead, and for those who loved them.

On Tuesday, our country was attacked with deliberate and
massive cruelty. We have seen the images of fire and ashes and
bent steel.

Now come the names, the list of casualties we are only
beginning. They are the names of men and women who began their
day at a desk or in an airport, busy with life. They are the
names of people who faced death and in their last moments
called home to say, Be brave and I love you.

They are the names of passengers who defied their murderers
and prevented the murder of others on the ground. They are
the names of men and women who wore the uniform of the
United States and died at their posts.

They are the names of rescuers -- the ones whom death found
running up the stairs and into the fires to help others. We
will read all these names. We will linger over them and
learn their stories, and many Americans will weep.

To the children and parents and spouses and families and
friends of the lost, we offer the deepest sympathy of the nation.
And I assure you, you are not alone.

Just three days removed from these events, Americans do not
yet have the distance of history, but our responsibility to
history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid
the world of evil. War has been waged against us by stealth 
and deceit and murder.

This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger.
This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others; 
it will end in a way and at an hour of our choosing.

Our purpose as a nation is firm, yet our wounds as a people
are recent and unhealed and lead us to pray. In many of our
prayers this week, there's a searching and an honesty. At
St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, on Tuesday, a woman
said, ``I pray to God to give us a sign that he's still
here.'' Others have prayed for the same, searching 
hospital to hospital, carrying pictures of those still 
missing.

God's signs are not always the ones we look for. We learn in
tragedy that his purposes are not always our own, yet the
prayers of private suffering, whether in our homes or in
this great cathedral are known and heard and understood.

There are prayers that help us last through the day or
endure the night. There are prayers of friends and strangers 
that give us strength for the journey, and there are prayers 
that yield our will to a will greater than our own.

This world He created is of moral design. Grief and tragedy
and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance and
love have no end, and the Lord of life holds all who die and
all who mourn.

It is said that adversity introduces us to ourselves. This
is true of a nation as well. In this trial, we have been 
reminded and the world has seen that our fellow Americans 
are generous and kind, resourceful and brave.

We see our national character in rescuers working past
exhaustion, in long lines of blood donors, in thousands 
of citizens who have asked to work and serve in any way 
possible. And we have seen our national character in eloquent 
acts of sacrifice. Inside the World Trade Center, one man who 
could have saved himself stayed until the end and at the side 
of his quadriplegic friend. A beloved priest died giving the last
rites to a firefighter. Two office workers, finding a disabled
stranger, carried her down 68 floors to safety.

A group of men drove through the night from Dallas to
Washington to bring skin grafts for burned victims. In these 
acts and many others, Americans showed a deep commitment to one
another and in an abiding love for our country.

Today, we feel what Franklin Roosevelt called, ``the warm
courage of national unity.'' This is a unity of every faith and
every background. This has joined together political parties
and both houses of Congress. It is evident in services of prayer
and candlelight vigils and American flags, which are
displayed in pride and waved in defiance. Our unity is a 
kinship of grief and a steadfast resolve to prevail against 
our enemies. And this unity against terror is now extending 
across the world.

America is a nation full of good fortune, with so much to be
grateful for, but we are not spared from suffering. In every
generation, the world has produced enemies of human freedom.
They have attacked America because we are freedom's
home and defender, and the commitment of our fathers is now
the calling of our time.

On this national day of prayer and remembrance, we ask
almighty God to watch over our nation and grant us patience 
and resolve in all that is to come. We pray that He will comfort
and console those who now walk in sorrow. We thank Him for
each life we now must mourn, and the promise of a life to
come.

As we've been assured, neither death nor life nor angels nor
principalities, nor powers nor things present nor things to
come nor height nor depth can separate us from God's love.
May He bless the souls of the departed. May He comfort our
own. And may He always guide our country.

God bless America.