A year after 9/11, I journeyed to Ground Zero, where people gathered, remembered and mourned. I wrote this.

*****

A Sunday hush descends. The September morning glistens, a tease of autumn crispness. Towering business fortresses stand empty. The Brooklyn Bridge radiates an aging beauty, quiet and gentle.

Still, I feel dread.

My mind races as I approach Ground Zero, wondering what awaits at this grand canyon of loss.

At first one is struck by the size, a milling crowd staring at a vast void.”

The masses – and isn’t New York always about the masses – pour out from the subway and tourist buses alike. In yellow taxis or black limos, they descend in proper dresses, Lakers jerseys or Ohio field hockey T-shirts.

But this is not just an American collage. Women in saris, men with noses of every shape, a Barcelona tennis writer, a Russian photographer, a Japanese broadcaster.

Clearly the world is watching.

As with other sites of sorrow – Hiroshima, Auschwitz, the Vietnam Wall – here the mantra is simple: “Oh, my God.”

Still, this is America, and at this sacred site, an energetic hucksterism thrives.

“We got CDs, we got DVDs – check it out!” barks one of many sidewalk vendors. His competitor counters: “If you purchase from a vet, you buy correct.”

But no problem. It’s easy to look beyond the cluster of caps, candles and tchotchkes.

Nearby buildings, still standing with open scars, are draped with massive signs: “Let’s roll.” “We’ll never forget.” “Out of the dust.” And, “The human spirit is not measured by the size of the act, but by the size of the heart.”

But more than the banners, one is struck by a populist outpouring. Fences, walls and subway entrances are crowded with teddy bears, poems, banners and flowers. A torrent of handwritten sentiments abounds, emphatic, baffled, therapeutic.

What I first spot is a modest message in imperfect English: “We feel sorry for what happen. We Dominicans know what you passing through.”

In a soft breeze, church bells mingle with John Lennon’s “Imagine,” and a hardy Irish lad, fireman Joe Cooley, labors to explain it all to his nephew.

Nearby, a victim’s cousin scribbles a message on a banner, and the modest poems from Mr. Cole’s second-grade class in Lexington, North Carolina, touch the heart, simple and poignant.

All the while the crowd, like some Buddhist throng circumambulating an ancient temple, slowly circles the unforgiving chasm.

A rabbi’s prayer pleads: “God, please let there be peace.”

A priest in white, a wheelchair-bound fireman by his side, offers a sidewalk mass: “Dear Jesus, show us the way to God.”

Yes, the rubble that once stood ten stories high is now all but gone. Still, cranes oversee the void. Sledgehammers blast, cement cutters groan, a cadre of hard hats continues their marathon cleanup, as yet another dump truck plods up a makeshift ramp.

Deep in this urban earth, tiers of the original foundation remain.

All the while, one strains to catch fragments of tech talk as a demolition engineer confides: “That last time we were dealing with this foundation, we were worried about hitting the subway.”

But ultimately, Ground Zero is less about the high-tech intricacies and more about the simplest of human emotions.

Intuitively the crowd, pushing baby carriages, recording videos, seems to bond. Amidst the tears, one senses a celebration of the common man, the common woman, common sense, uncommon heroism.

For months, Philip Belaposo, gray-bearded and wearing a rumpled American flag tie, has been playing “Amazing Grace” here on his flute. He explains: “This is all about camaraderie, unity. All our old divisions are now patched up.”

Still, many seem haunted by memories.

New Jersey’s Nilda Colon-Latore confides, “I’ll never forget the smell of burning rubble, the smell of human flesh, a smell I never smelled before, and will never smell again. Here our loved ones died. Here we feel them. By being here, we seem closer.

Why did this happen? It’s a mystery. Still, the answers will unfold. We will understand. The future will tell us.

Clearly, this place is a sanctuary without orthodoxy; a shrine without walls, a site of loss and heroism, a promise for the future – peace and humanity.

Here, raw sentiment, open grief and utter confusion mix and converge – a planet’s pain.

Here, the shock of collapse, the loss of innocence, the fear of vulnerability all collide, blasting reason into retreat.

While gazing at the lingering dust, good people of all sentiment ask troubling questions: Will there be an answer? Can hope be rekindled? When will hate subside and peace prevail?

All the while, a baffled little boy bouncing atop broad shoulders plaintively admits, “Daddy, I don’t understand.”

And, come to think of it, neither do we.