It was his wife, calling from Portland, to tell him that a friend of theirs in Seattle had seen the news, thinking that Michael was not just in New York state but in New York City. “That’s how I found out about it,” Michael says. “Like everybody I was just sick about it but also somewhat fascinated by what these guys had done.”
He recalls feeling helpless as he sat and watched the news. “I remember going outside,” he says. “It was amazingly beautiful, with a little chill in the air. It was so noticeable that there weren’t planes in the air. It was great not to have the noise but it was also eerie.”
He experienced another eerie moment that day. He was in Olean, New York, doing research for a book he was writing on Bob Lax, whom he describes as an experimental poet who left commercial America behind and went to live with fishermen on a Greek island. “He dedicated his life to poetry and contemplation and the idea of peace,” he says.
He was also good friends with Thomas Merton, with whom he’d spent time in a cottage in the town. Michael, as part of his research, had arranged to visit the cabin on the 11th of September. “So we go into the cottage and there’s someone living there,” he says. “There’s a huge television. As the guy is telling us about this cottage I’m standing behind him and on the television they’re showing the routes of the planes, identifying them by airport codes,” he says. “One of them said BOS LAX and from across the room, where I was standing, it looked like Bob Lax. It was odd.”
