A Marine Honor Guard carries the casket of Marine Sgt. Maj. Joseph J. Ellis, of Ashland, Ohio, during funeral services at Arlington Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2007. He was killed February 7th in Iraq's Anbar Province west of Baghdad.
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Marilyn Adams talks about the loss of her husband, Pennsylvania National Guard Sgt. 1st Class Brent Adams, while in the family room in Wexford, Pa., Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007. 'I'm torn,' she said about the war in Iraq. 'Should we finish the job? And then I go to the funerals of the local guys and I'm like, this is just stupid ... I don't think we're going to finish it there. I don't think there's a finishing point. They're getting more efficient at killing us, that's a direct quote from the president.'
(AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
V. What The Thunder Said
from The Waste Land
by T. S. Eliot
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
8 comments:
I witness.
peace
for peace, love, and compassion,
always, even when they seem to have been forgotten
"TWENTY-YEAR OLD SOLDIERS"
by Adam Zagajewski
I couldn't paint, my voice cracked,
I didn't pass the high school finals,
I couldn't be an artist. They assigned me
to the infantry, the second unit of the fatherland's
sons, we cleaned our weapons and listened
to peacetime speeches, the war dragged on,
the closed eyes of houses watched revolts
of animals and endless processions
of sacrificial elders, my mother brought me
bread hiding newspapers from the time of the great hunger
for truth, I gave the bread to friends, and used the paper
to build warships, great battles, unitended
victories awaited us,
rumbling wagons and the cries of drunk commanders
woke us at night, we were certain,
twenty-year-old soldiers, that
the true army drew nearer, craving blood.
SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON IN THE ABANDONED BARRACKS
by A. Zagajewski
The sun, the opulent sun of September,
the full sun of harvest and stubbled field,
stood still above me
and above the abandoned barracks.
Silence
bivouacked where once orders
were shouted;
silence, not
soldiers; in the infirmary
silence, not the groans
of the ill.
The overgrown grass in the yard
needs mowing.
Silence where blue skulled
recruits sobbed.
In me, too, silence,
no longer despair.
A black rooster, a hot, black banner of blood,
runs down a path.
Autumn fades,
war dims.
peace.
Peace, and witness
Witness
(Animation courtesy of CoolNotions.com.)
Blow the Wind Southerly
(Traditional)
Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly
Blow the wind south o'er the bonnie blue sea;
Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly
Blow, bonnie breeze, my lover to me.
They told me last night there were ships in the offing
And I hurried down to the deep rolling sea;
But my eye could not see it wherever might be it
The bark that is bearing my lover to me.
So,
Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly
Blow the wind south o'er the bonnie blue sea;
Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly
Blow, bonnie breeze, my lover to me.
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