Poem: Why Are We in Afghanistan?

April 23, 2012
Issue 

“Belief in Winter’s iron music turns the lands of home to Spring.” Kenneth Patchen, “Nocturne for the Heirs of Light”

Even your blood
seems cold slush
so
we come, bearing
scientific warmth
and clean blades

Of faith and all
such crude early things
we moderns strive to sharpen,
your mystic heart alone
beats most desperate
beneath our lazer aim:
true tempered love
at gunship point
thrusts in you
bleeding you clear
in sha'Allah

by dread hand of
surgeon- drone,
bootkick- blessing,
your shabby portal
opens

upon us

we ash-cross your brow:
Deus vult--

at long long last
that bleak dark winter
ends

lonely
thin
you
lost in Himalayan snows

now
our shining Mylar blankets
fall from outer space and outer time

to wrap you safe

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