juxtaposition

“The falling man, do you remember him?” He was a waiter, you say, or a bartender from a floor or a window too high to reach or escape and so, he chose a passable route, from the smoke and flames, and evil and sorrow. “I cannot forget,” I say. He chose to leave by his own will or by his own insanity. And all I can think is, “who could blame him?” and how on that day, and at that time, 9:41 and 15 seconds I could do no more than weep. But he, he walked toward a paradox of certainty and freedom; the choice seizes my comprehension. If it was a choice at all. “I wonder what he thought,” I say, wondering if he thought anything at all, if in that moment of conviction, he experienced clarity or confusion, nirvana or terror. You close your eyes, “…I’m trying to imagine what he thought, the range of emotions; incomprehensible.” Did he have time to think? Did he say, “This can’t be happening?” Did he know? Did he realize? How could he? God, I hope he didn’t realize. His timeless freefall eclipses glass and steel. His swan song an abstract jackknife, sovereignty amidst submission. Windows and beams form the drab stripes of a distressed flag, reflect and absorb Autumn’s light and Hell’s darkness, and he balances between. Midair he transforms from a mere man to emblematic, enigmatic American man. Those, who presumed to know us, who sought to destroy our groundwork, only pushed us to reveal our mettle.  “He did it his way; he took control. In the moment he left that window, he became free…”  I conclude, but inside no way resolved. “I like to   believe    that,”    you    said. The falling man turns through the air like a drop of rain released from full clouds. One of hundreds unnamed, he, the one suspended by film, held in God’s hand midair, infinitely above the hardened Earth below. Like Keats’ lovers, both seized and embraced by time and art. He shunned oppression by Evil like 40 others would, and flew toward Heaven by walking out of  Hell. Did you gasp for breath when you surfaced from the holocaust? Did you curse, “My God, why have You forsaken me?” or did you pray for forgiveness, or for mercy, or for deliverance? Did you recall your first baseball game, your dry cleaning ticket, that boy from school, your mother? Your children? Did you have children? Did your mind implode and rain inward soothing and cleansing as you descended from the sky? Did you laugh with irony at the inconsequential? Classified paperwork and ashes. In this photograph you hover, as if in limbo. You appear posed and poised, composed though we cannot see your face, can we? Did you wonder what the news would say, or if anyone would even notice? Did you know that we noticed? Do you feel us even now, our collective embrace? At what point did you decide? Or did you simply walk forward until you ceased to have to walk at all? Did you think to blame? Did liberation scream from your tongue in silence or defiance? Did despair pound fists into thighs, rip nails into cheeks, or did you relax into acceptance? While some marched, some stood, some crumpled within, but you declared, “In life as in death    I am an American, and I am  free.”