this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war and other disasters
cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.
image and poem below the fold
Relatives of those killed by a car bomb in the market at Nahrawan, about 20
miles (32 kilometers) east of Baghdad, Saturday, wait next to vehicles carrying
coffins on top after arriving to collect their bodies at the al-Kindi hospital
in Baghdad Sunday Sept. 18 2005. Four days after al-Qaida in Iraq declared
all-out war on the Shiite majority, more than 250 people have been killed, 30 of
them by a car bomb Saturday outside a produce market in a poor Shiite suburb
east of Baghdad. The blast underlined one of the bloodiest weeks since the
U.S.-led invasion.
(AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
Rattler Bites Nightingale Sings
by Carol Frost
When time is divided into venom and blood,
the watchers of the snake know the harm done, the bitten
one feels cell by cell by cell rubber, mint, metal; agonized
in the heart; then numb. Homer tells and the old paintings show:
each new death and new grief aren’t new. But for you,
rebuking yourself, heart growling, as you try to sleep:
the copse again that must be walked through; cryptic
crawl like over an open fire the twisting of an intestine
filled with fat and blood; fear dividing from hidden joy
it wasn’t you: -once more there is only one death.
Blind, how the nightingale, snake’s cousin,
sings in green darkness and seems to touch upon
fresh pain and fault elemental.
– – –
support SassyTexan’s humanitarian work by donating to the Houston Red Cross and being sure to indicate that it is in honor of MLW SassyTexan
give to the American Red Cross
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
read Dahr Jamail’s Iraq Dispatches
read Today in Iraq
Leonard Clark’s blog has been taken down
witness every day
