Feb 5, 2010 · 1 comment
for them
If sorrow flared like fire its smoke would rise
Darkening forever all the earth and skies
Shahid, 10th c. Afghan poet
Ours is a cold death, no pyres past fortnight,
white lavender, lilies brown on the high tide
we cried for you over and over
your signature to be different from the rest;
what is this test you measure against,
when was it born in such an easy life.
You slept on and off, wild,
under Afghan night shifting like sand,
I swear I could hear the crunch
of your footsteps on patrol
though I unslept
12,000 kilometers from you.
A hundred thousand moths of breath,
the ring-around-the-rosy-road circling my head,
a fingertip over Panjawaii, Dand,
parsing who, what, where you are.
You said you dreamed a quiet life,
sip tea, smoke your cigarettes.
I know otherwise. Yours is village,
the old men or mortar-fire, Karl G,
the flight through grape fields
the singing of cordite, the long stroll.
Our death is frigid, no fire
but long, long, the coldest winter yet.
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The page you're reading contains a single diary entry entitled . It was posted here on February 05, 2010.
VJ Grimes
“what is this test you measure against,
when was it born in such an easy life.”
The idea that people volunteer—“in such an easy life.” In J Irving’s Cider House Rules, an orphan was puzzled that the young man-of-the-manor would feel it a test of self to volunteer, while just living was the test, as an orphan.
Feb 05 2010 · 14:16