OPINION: 25 years on, a nation still mourns

People pause as they stand at the memorial during a ceremony commemorating the 25th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center at the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum on September 11, 2026 in New York City. Spencer Platt/Getty Images/Getty Images North America hide caption

Yesterday marked a quarter century since the 9-11 terrorist attacks. I still remember — I will always remember —walking the streets of Lower Manhattan through rows of faces in photographs pasted on lampposts and walls with urgent, wrenching words:

"Have you seen my wife?" "Last seen, 8:20 AM, Tuesday." "Have you seen our daughter?" "…our father?" "…my best friend?"

The attacks of September 11, 2001, were attacks on America. But America is made up of the world.

The 2,977 people who were killed that day included people from more than 90 nations -- Canada, India, Great Britain, South Korea, the Dominican Republic and more. That's America.

This week, I remembered a poem dedicated to the 43 members of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union who came to work that morning at Windows on the World restaurant, atop the World Trade Center's North Tower. None of them survived the tower's collapse.

The poem is called 'Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100' , by Martín Espada. It reads, in part:

Praise Manhattan from a hundred and seven flights up, like Atlantis glimpsed through the windows of an ancient aquarium.