I saw this story on 'BBC World' about an art curator from the World Trade Center, I don't know if he worked for a company, or for a gallery, if he was an agent - but he was talking about loosing his Jamaican friend in the tragedy, I didn't hear what his friends name was but he was an artist.

They showed his work, these amazing sculptures which were oddly prophetic. Tall black men, apparently modeled after his own body, wide flat noses and burnished bronze skin. These men were dressed as pilots, some wore the leather aviator helmets, many were missing limbs, all had planes plowing into them.

Out of everything that I've seen, out of all the horrible images, the people free falling, the fire balls, the twisted metal, the plane being swallowed by the building, this is what I see in my minds eye most. These towering sculptures that are now somewhere, mangled in the wreckage.

The one I think of the most is an armless man, he is dressed like an airforce pilot, overalls and helmet, with these planes, these little planes...

...some just buzzing at his skin with propellors, others burying themselves into his body...

And whenever I see them, I think of you. You reached out, in a time when all you could do was watch in horror, you phoned me - needed me, and there were these planes, buzzing into his body.

... these tiny planes.

We needed to hold each other, and clasped the phone to our ears in silence... and these planes burrowing into his arms... and we were together even though we are seperated by and ocean, and this pilot... his planes... the horror...and you, effecting me, still.

Hold me close, I love you.

Notes:

I did a net search and the artist's name is Michael Richard, more info can be found here:

• http://www.franconia.org/richardsinfo.html
• http://www.artswire.org/current.html#else
• http://www.studiomuseuminharlem.org/richards.html

To the left is a photo of the artists and one of the works that haunts me.