In anticipation of 9.11

I am the mash'd fireman with breast-bone broken,
Tumbling walls buried me in their debris,
Heat and smoke I inspired,
I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades,
I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels,
They have clear'd the beams away,
they tenderly lift me forth.

I lie in the night air in my red shirt,
the pervading hush is for my sake,
Painless after all I lie exhausted but not so unhappy,
White and beautiful are the faces around me,
the heads are bared of their fire-caps,
The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches.

— Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

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