MAKE IT GREEN

L* B*

MAKE IT GREEN
September 14, 2001

BY ROGER EBERT 

If there is to be a memorial, let it not be of stone and steel. Fly no flag
above it, for it is not the possession of a nation but a sorrow shared with
the world.

Let it be a green field, with trees and flowers. Let there be paths that
wind through the shade. Put out park benches where old people can sun in the
summertime, and a pond where children can skate in the winter.

Beneath this field will lie entombed forever some of the victims of
September 11. It is not where they thought to end their lives. Like the
sailors of the battleship Arizona, they rest where they fell.

Let this field stretch from one end of the destruction to the other. Let
this open space among the towers mark the emptiness in our hearts. But do
not make it a sad place. Give it no name. Let people think of it as the
green field. Every living thing that is planted there will show faith in the
future. 

Let students take a corner of the field and plant a crop there. Perhaps
corn, our native grain. Let the harvest be shared all over the world, with
friends and enemies, because that is the teaching of our religions, and we
must show that we practice them. Let the harvest show that life prevails
over death, and let the gifts show that we love our neighbors.

Do not build again on this place. No building can stand there. No building,
no statue, no column, no arch, no symbol, no name, no date, no statement.
Just the comfort of the earth we share, to remind us that we share it.

September 14, 2001 

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