After the world-altering tragedy of September 11, 2001, artists and writers around the world began to express their grief through their work. I was invited by Etruscan Press to a meeting in New York City to consider publishing an anthology of poetry responding to the tragedy. Fred Moramarco’s poem, Messages from the Sky: September 11, 2001, was included in the anthology.
It pierced me. Moramarco had turned the horror of that day into an elemental love poem, love born out of acute loss, defying the darker gravity of September 11.
I wanted to find a way to share it with New York City on the first anniversary in 2002, so I created two six-foot glass panels with the poem embedded in them and offered them to one of the churches at Ground Zero. They accepted, and the glass-encased poem was mounted on an outside wall of the church. After the memorial service, members of the congregation passed by and paused, reading silently.
For the following year, the panels remained suspended in the window of a bookstore near Times Square.
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