The VigilanceVoice

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Sunday-- March 24, 2002—Ground Zero Plus 194

Clouds Of Vigilance
by
Cliff McKenzie
Editor, New York City Combat Correspondent News 
 

        GROUND ZERO, New York City, Mar. 24--I sat at my apartment window watching the Spirits of Vigilance kissing the underbelly of the soft, white clouds that slide under Heaven's Gates.
        It was breathtaking to see the two shafts of lights rising up from Ground Zero carving through the blue-black velvet of a crisp, windy evening sky and waiting for a cottony cloud to intersect the beams and ignite to life as the facets of a diamond dance with delight under a jeweler's light.

       I leaned against the open window, my camera resting in one hand, my head back against the wall, waiting for the puffy clouds zooming across the sky to navigate themselves into the beams.
       As the clouds touched the light, its brilliance ignited.   The beams ignited the dense water molecules, turning the gauzy grayish white cloud into a ball of brilliance, as though some giant hand had reached down and pulled the on switch, igniting the energy in the cloud to shine upon all who walked, or sat or slept below.
      I took picture after picture with my Kodak digital, attempting to capture the "Moment Of Brilliance"--that precise instant when the cloud transformed from an anonymous stranger passing by in the sky into a monument of ignited respect for those who died so heroically on September 11th in the World Trade Center holocaust.
      Spirits live.   At least for me. 
      As the clouds moved toward the beams of light, I imagined them as punctuation points, exclamation and periods, dotting the sky to remind us who are trapped on earth that the universe recognizes the Sentinels of Vigilance, the 3,000 innocent victims whose bodies might have passed from life to death, but whose souls continue to flourish in the beams of light New York City has established in their memory.
      Oh, Shafts of Vigilance, spearing up into the sky;
      You kiss the womb of God, igniting to life memories
      Of why you died so others might live to remember
      Our Shields of Vigilance--Courage, Conviction, Action-- must never be lowered.
      My mind talked to the clouds and beams of light.   I felt a unity with them both, an     appreciation of their purpose.
      Vigilance was the jewel formed out of the fires of Hell.   It was the treasure left in the rubble.
      Those who died that morning did not die in vain or futility.
      They have come together as one body, all their souls, to form the Sentinels of Vigilance--and to stand above the horror of that day as legends we must never forget.
      I hear them reminding us to not let Terrorism's Fear, Intimidation or Complacency rule our lives.  I hear them saying we must fight our weaknesses with strength, and that they will be alongside us to assist, urge, encourage and help us protect ourselves from Fear's black hole, from Intimidation's shadow, and from Complacency's death bed.
      As each cloud was brought to life by the beams of light, I could hear the songs of Vigilance being sung from the souls caught in the lasered illumination.
      The melodic chant charioted on the tongue of the wind  in the dawn of morning::  "Semper Vigilantes!"   "Semper Vigilantes!"
      I hear them.   I hope you can too!

 Go To Mar. 23--The Skepticism of Terrorism