Mathematics students will remember 
a very special high school teacher, 
Claire Chamberlin Olds. She taught at Hartford High School for many years.  
At age ____, she wrote this poem 
a few days after the terrorist attack on 
the New York Twin Towers
September 11, 2001.

Claire served in the US Marine Corp. Women's Reserve in WW11

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The American World, 2001© is a copyrighted poem and cannot be reprinted or published without expressed written permission from the author, 
Claire Chamberlin Olds.  
Please email the webmaster  
for contact information.

The American World, 2001©

 Overnight

the world has changed.

Our little lives

in familiar neighborhoods

on the surface of the earth

are overhung with ominous disasters

slicing through the skies.

Vulnerable humans

flee or perish in the debris

of sophisticated buildings,

and a numb terror overtakes

individual everyday lives.

Yet everywhere,

in pockets of inspired strength,

there are brave standings up

against the impossible odds,

there are compassionate helping hands

in the midst of chaos.

And strong voices

exhort us to persevere.

High notes of the human spirit

rise through the smoke of destruction,

and a strong country

picks itself up

to stand and work together

to be whole again.