[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12051]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 15TH ANNIVERSARY OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Mr. Speaker, this Sunday, September 11, marks the 
15th anniversary of the vicious attacks on America.
  I very much appreciate the leadership's scheduling a commemoration on 
the steps of the Capitol tomorrow morning, but more needs to be said 
as, I fear, time and events have dulled our memories.
  In addition, our Nation has grown by over 60 million since September 
11, 2001--children born after the towers came down, including the 
13,000 babies who came into this world on that incredible day. Unlike 
the rest of us, they have no direct memories of these horrendous events 
that changed our Nation forever as hate-filled extremists struck in the 
streets of Lower Manhattan, in the fields of Pennsylvania, and at the 
Pentagon. Over 700 citizens from my State of New Jersey died on that 
day.
  Our mere words cannot possibly capture the sentiments that surround 
September 11. So in lieu of extended, formal remarks, I would like to 
read, as I have in past years, ``The Names,'' a poem written by the 
then-poet laureate Billy Collins, which he read before a congressional 
joint session in New York City just after the attacks which Members of 
Congress heard firsthand.

                             ``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 lifts 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.
     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.

  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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