THESE ARE MP3 FILES FROM
BOUCHERCON 2001
A "non-sponsored" 9-11 discussion

The actual order of appearance was:
Harrington, Browning, Snyder, Rozan

Please note: taping didn't begin until Jonathan
was already a few minutes into his comments.
Jonathan's closing poem is at the end of the page.

Audio is of iffy quality -- this is both because the microphone was halfway
across the room and because making it sound better would delay its
availability by a few months.
Jonathan Harrington           Sinclair Browning

Keith Snyder           S. J. Rozan

SURVIVORS

After the splinters of shattered glass are swept away,
the rubble trucked off,
the compromised buildings propped up or bulldozed down.
After the scattered fingers have been raked together,
sorted by size into plastic baggies
to be fingerprinted,
and the ashes of the dead poured into urns,
their graves shoveled over with contaminated earth.
After the sky has been hoisted up with cranes and pulleys
and nailed back into place.
After the sun has been repaired
and the planets arranged once more in their proper orbits
when the stars begin to twinkle again, however faintly.
What surgeon will suture our torn hearts?
When will the garish flash of mass murder
seared onto our minds the way light burns photographic plates
finally begin to fade
like the portraits made from them
already yellowing in dark drawers?
Where will the children turn for blessings
And to whom?

Jonathan Harrington