Listen Here
By Dave Essinger, Professor of English and Chair of the Department of Ethics, Language, and Culture
Every channel played the same
loops—the Boeing poised
like a Frisbee against impossibly
blue sky, something Photoshopped in,
a scene from any Bruckheimer movie.
And Aaron Brown of CNN, who could also be
any stock character on Nick at Nite—
his brow furrowed with bird-foot
creases indicating sensitivity—asking,
“Can we roll that one more time?”
As if anyone could press pause,
and a million wishful thinkings might
freeze an airplane in the air, or even jam one single
tape in one newsroom anywhere.
The problem should be simple, of editing video,
sky-blue shapes and negative space. But now how
are we supposed to see any object silhouetted by sky,
not as symbol, just itself? We held our breath for days,
waiting for permission, from Jon Stewart and then The Onion,
to look away, to break the loop—to see a thrown disc
floating toward us—blue sky, warm fall day, you know the rest—
and think only of raising our hands, to receive it.
