image: A policeman stands near bodies of Iraqi civilians lying outside a morgue in Baghdad. At least 34 people, mostly young men seeking to join the Iraqi army, were killed in a spate of suicide bombings as the United States and Britain considered a drastic troop reduction in the country. (AFP/Karim Sahib)
Cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, and European Tribune.
image and poem below the fold
The Weeping Garden
by Boris Pasternak
translated by A.S. Kline
It’s terrible! – all drip and listening.
Whether, as ever, it’s loneliness,
splashing a branch, like lace, on the window,
or whether perhaps there’s a witness.
Choked there beneath its swollen
burden – earth’s nostrils, and audibly,
like August, far off in the distance,
midnight, ripening slow with the fields.
No sound. No one’s in hiding.
Confirming its pure desolation,
it returns to its game – slipping
from roof, to gutter, slides on.
I’ll moisten my lips, listening:
whether, as ever, I’m loneliness,
and ready maybe for weeping,
or whether perhaps there’s a witness.
But, silence. No leaves trembling.
Nothing to see: sobs, and cries
being swallowed, slippers splashing,
between them, tears and sighs.
– – –
support the Iraqi people
support the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)
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support the troops and the Iraqi people
read This is what John Kerry did today, the diary by lawnorder that prompted this series
read Riverbend’s Bagdhad Burning
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