Explanation:
His first statement in the poem does the contrasting, which says;
"Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night".
In effect he was saying just as an innocent child goes to bed, so the victims were alive just the day before horrific event of September 11.
Further into the night the innocent child experiences a change, which was expressed with the words;
"A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze". This saying indicates how the innocent people experienced a change that made them victims of a horrific event that claimed their lives.
