September 11th: remember (or at least, don't forget)

Yesterday's date, September 11th, deserves our moment of pause and reflection on what happened that day in 2001.

Like an erupting volcano, this photograph needs no comment*. So here's my comment: often when I think of him and them (above) I think of a poem by English poet Andrew Marvell, about Oliver Cromwell, for whom war was a natural state of being. Was GWB an American Cromwell?

So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,
But through adventurous war
Urgèd his active star:

And like the three-fork'd lightning, first
Breaking the clouds where it was nursed,
Did through his own Side
His fiery way divide:

Then burning through the air he went,
And palaces and temples rent;
And Cæsar's head at last
Did through his laurels blast.

'Tis madness to resist or blame
The face of angry heaven's flame;
And if we would speak true,
Much to the Man is due

Nor yet grown stiffer with command,
But still in the Republic's hand—
How fit he is to sway
That can so well obey!...

But Thou, the War's and Fortune's son,
March indefatigably on;
And for the last effect
Still keep thy sword erect:

Besides the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night,
The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain.

*No comment except perhaps: "Run Like Fuck!"