this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war – and today, for Ilona

we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people – without exception, or precondition, or judgement.

image and poem below the fold

Spc. Christopher Six, 20, is seen during an interview with the Associated Press at the Pennsylvania National Guard armory in New Milford Pa., Thursday, Aug. 10, 2006. Six joined the National Guard with two of his high school buddies at age 17, who were both killed while serving in Iraq.
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

In Memoriam Paul Celan
by Edward Hirsch  

Lay these words into the dead man’s grave
next to the almonds and black cherries—
tiny skulls and flowering blood-drops, eyes,
and Thou, O bitterness that pillows his head.

Lay these words on the dead man’s eyelids
like eyebrights, like medieval trumpet flowers
that will flourish, this time, in the shade.
Let the beheaded tulips glisten with rain.

Lay these words on his drowned eyelids
like coins or stars, ancillary eyes.
Canopy the swollen sky with sunspots
while thunder addresses the ground.

Syllable by syllable, clawed and handled,
the words have united in grief.
It is the ghostly hour of lamentation,
the void’s turn, mournful and absolute.

Lay these words on the dead man’s lips
like burning tongs, a tongue of flame.
A scouring eagle wheels and shrieks.
Let God pray to us for this man.

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