[From the diaries by susanhu.]
this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war and other disasters
we honor courage in all its forms
cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.
Hospital staff look at one of the bodies of victims of a prison shoot out in Baghdad, Iraq Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2005. An inmate in a Baghdad prison grabbed an assault rifle from a guard and opened fire on other guards and prisoners, killing at least eight people and injuring three, police said.
(AP Photo/Asaad Muhsin)
poem below the fold
Arnica / Absolution / Ambien
by Miranda Field
No mortal ever learns to go to sleep definitively. No baby, animal or
vegetable, intends to sink his vehicle in so soundless a lake. In such
cloudy houses, shadows take the shape of something “put to sleep.” Any
oblivion is a field or maze a creature grazes in for private reasons. The
edible flower taken from its bed to the table expires on your tongue, and
this is what we mean by sense of night and utterly internal to itself.
To go to sleep, I think of the bodies in their reservoirs, painstakingly
changing from opaque to phosphorescent. How all the while distracted
Nature pours a perfect solvent on their experiment. I take a half-pill, a
paradigm ignites, a moving sign in rain. I take a whole, the flame grows
lower. One and a quarter, it’s just a flicker. No sense asking who I am
then. Swinging from its dead twig in a bush, the aura-like cocoon, lit up
by winter sun– the least of its worries the worm.
– – –
put a meaningful magnet on your car or metal filing cabinet
read Ilona’s important diary at MLW – Returning Vet PTSD – One Soldier’s Story as well her comprehensive series on PTSD and Iraq War vets.
view the pbs newshour silent honor roll (with thanks to jimstaro at booman.)
take a private moment to light one candle among many (with thanks to TXSharon)
support Veterans for Peace
support the Iraqi people
support the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)
support CARE
support the victims of torture
remember the fallen
support Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors – TAPS
support Gold Star Families for Peace
support the fallen
support the troops
support Iraq Veterans Against the War
support Military families Speak Out
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
witness every day