It is now 9/12. After all the 9/11 hype, after all the ceremonies, after all the memories and all the tears and all the politicians' words that already have been forgotten, all the 9/11 tribute that was needed was all that heaven would allow.
Thousands have spent millions trying to memorialize that which befell us a decade ago -- those lives taken from us, the death of what we were and the difficult birth of what we now are -- and have fallen short. Still, we seem somehow out of tune.
After everything, amid all the unending promotion (and, indeed, way too much unseemly wallowing and sad pandering) we basically had nothing. Or at least not nearly enough amid much too much.
But it was a year ago last night that a Spanish musician, photographer and Twitterer who mightily loves New York looked up. He took the shot. And John de Guzmán thus captured what all the politicians' speeches and all the media's stories could not. In the blink of an eye -- the click of a camera's shutter.
They needn't have bothered. What was needed was already done.
The photo, unsurprisingly, has gone viral. I just thought the man behind it deserved a little credit for capturing what all the rest of us could not -- or would not.