Letter: A poem for the 10th anniversary

September Snow -- a memory of Sept. 11, 2001

An odd beauty in gray light,

The air fogged with fine ash,

Falling like snow in canyons,

Covering the secrets below,

The wintry wonderland.

But it smelled of jet fuel,

And the ash thickened air,

Burned acid in the eyes,

As we huddled our faces,

Clogging our lungs with death's dust.

Then a building fell,

And became a sudden storm,

A roaring wave of angry dark,

Racing through a canyon,

That was a street of New York.

The light was lost,

And in the tumble and toss,

The quick were gone,

But the slow were hidden,

Among the dead,

In the secrets below the wintry wonderland.

by Lawrence Reiss, Middle Island

Editor's note: The writer was a volunteer emergency medical technician at the World Trade Center site.