Lily Krakowski on sun 22 sep 02
sculpture
Not having seen the sculpture in question, I nevertheless say it seems not
a good idea. There are thousands out there for whom the wounds are still
open, not perhaps visibly to all, but who still have to deal with
consequences to which they are not yet used.
I think it was Elie Wiesel --was it?-- who said that the Holocaust required
ten years--maybe more--of silence. September 11 demands a long silence too.
As Edna St Vincent Millay wrote: "Time does not bring relief; you all have
lied / Who told me time would ease me of my pain!" and, again, in a
different poem: 'And must I then, indeed, Pain, live with you/ All through
my life? --sharing my fire, my bed, /Sharing--oh, worst of all things!--the
same head?--"
TV and instant book publishing has created a feling that everything must be
said and told instantly, a coup for whoever does it first...We were first to
tell you, first to show you....
I fear this spirit prompted too quick a reaction to a national tragedy,
that was for so many the end of what they loved about life.
Even if I stood in front of the sculpture, I could not see it as a work of
art--but as a quickly applied bandage across a gaping wound.
I do plan a trip to NYC soon, to visit friends and family. I studiously
will avoid that sculpture. And to the woman who lost a dear one, and cannot
stand the sculpture-- I am sorry, may you be comforted among mourners.
Lili Krakowski
P.O. Box #1
Constableville, N.Y.
(315) 942-5916/ 397-2389
Be of good courage....
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