“[I]n times of crisis it’s interesting that people don’t turn to the novel or say, ‘We should all go out to a movie,’ or ‘Ballet would help us.’ It’s always poetry. What we want to hear is a human voice speaking directly in our ear.”
Billy Collins, U.S. Poet Laureate (2001-2003) speaking to the New York Times, as quoted in The Dead Beat by Marilyn Johnson
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.
april is national poetry month
image and poem below the fold
an image from the multimedia presentation The Lifeline
A three-part Los Angeles Times series following the lives of soldiers wounded in Iraq
by David Zucchino
photographs by Rick Loomis
From Digby’s Hullabaloo
Voices From The front
by digby
I highly recommend this series in the LA Times about wounded military in Iraq and Afghanistan. (There are some very graphic pictures, so don’t look if you have a weak stomach. It’s the real face of the war in all its bloody horror.)
It’s quite a tribute to these soldiers’ courage and the miracle of modern medicine. There have been more than 17,000 wounded in Iraq thus far, an average of 110 per week. In past wars a vast number of them would have died. Today, with great battlefield medicine and immediate transport to Europe and the States, most of them pull through. But their wounds are grievous and their lives will never be the same. The primary means of wounding them isn’t bullets — it’s explosive devices.
These people have made a great sacrifice for a cynical, political purpose and it makes me furious. It’s not the first time this has happened in history, but it damned well ought to be the last time the US ever does it.
The Lifeline
A three-part Los Angeles Times series following the lives of soldiers wounded in Iraq
by David Zucchino
photographs by Rick Loomis
A Bird in Hand
by Amber Flora Thomas
I’ve memorized its heart pounding into my thumb.
Breath buoys out. My fingers know how to kill,
closing on the bird’s slippery head.
I don’t remember. Was it that beak bit my chin?
Was it a claw cut my wrist? I blow feathers
away from its chest, smelling pennies and rain.
Skin like granite, a real white-blue, flecked
by knots of new growth. I found my need,
cold in cupped palms, just the way I was taught.
I return to account for whose neck falls around
backwards. Eyes that go cataract bring clouds.
That fat pearl with wings looks like water disappearing in me.
– – –
put a meaningful magnet on your car or metal filing cabinet
read Ilona’s important new blog – PTSD Combat
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