[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 13420-13421]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                TWELFTH ANNIVERSARY OF ATTACK ON AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to mark the 12th anniversary 
of the attack on America of September 11, 2001.
  In lieu of formal remarks, I would like to read ``The Names,'' a poem 
written by then-poet laureate Billy Collins, which was read before a 
joint session of Congress in lower Manhattan just after the attacks.
  ``The Names,'' by Billy Collins:

     Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.
     A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
     And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
     I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
     Then Baxter and Calabro,
     Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
     As droplets fell through the dark.
     Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
     Names slipping around a watery bend.
     Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.
     In the morning, I walked out barefoot
     Among thousands of flowers
     Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
     And each had a name--
     Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
     Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.
     Names written in the air
     And stitched into the cloth of the day.
     A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
     Monogram on a torn shirt,
     I see you spelled out on storefront windows
     And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
     I say the syllables as I turn a corner--
     Kelly and Lee,
     Medina, Nardella, and O'Connor.
     When I peer into the woods,
     I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
     As in a puzzle concocted for children.
     Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
     Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
     Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.
     Names written in the pale sky.
     Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
     Names silent in stone
     Or cried out behind a door.
     Names blown over the earth and out to sea.
     In the evening--weakening light, the last swallows.
     A boy on a lake lift his oars.
     A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
     And the names are outlined on the rose clouds--
     Vanacore and Wallace.
     (let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
     Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt 
           of Z.

[[Page 13421]]

     Names etched on the head of a pin.
     One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
     A blue name needled into the skin.
     Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
     The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
     Alphabet of names in a green field.
     Names in the small tracks of birds.
     Names lifted from a hat
     Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
     Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
     So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the 
           heart.

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