August 1, 2008
Absolute Knowledge
Absolute knowledge have I none
But my aunt’s washer woman’s son
Heard a policeman on his beat
Say to a laborer on the street
That he got a letter just last week
Hand written in the finest Greek
From a Chinese coolie in Timbuktu
Who said that a son in Cuba knew
Of a colored gent in a Texas town
Who got it straight from a circus clown
That a man in Klondike heard the news
From a band of Smooth American Jews
About some fellow from Borneo
Who knew a man who claimed to know
Of a hermit living beside a lake
Whose mother-in-law will undertake
To prove that a cousin’s sister’s neice
Has said in a finely written piece
That she has a son who knows a friend
Who knows the date the world will end.
Suddenly and without warning, on a bright day in September almost seven years ago, two airliners crashed into the twin towers of New York City’s World Trade Center, leaving devastating destruction and death. In Washington, D.C., and in Pennsylvania, two other airliners came down, also as a result of a terrorist plot. These tragedies snuffed out the lives of thousands of men, women, and children. 
