this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

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

we have no sympathy for the devil

image and poem below the fold

Wooden crosses are seen at a roadside memorial in Lafayette, California, honouring military troops that have died in Iraq. From the perspective of Arab governments, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has been too tolerant of Shiite militias and unable to control his war-ravaged country, Arab officials said.
(AFP/Getty Images/Justin Sullivan)

An Obscure Meadow Lures Me
by José Lezama Lima
translated by Nathaniel Tarn

An obscure meadow lures me,
her fast, close-fitting lawns
revolve in me, sleep on my balcony.
They rule her beaches, her indefinite
alabaster dome re-creates itself.
On the waters of a mirror,
the voice cut short crossing a hundred paths,
my memory prepares surprise:
fallow dew in the sky, dew, sudden flash.
Without hearing I’m called:
I slowly enter the meadow,
proudly consumed in a new labyrinth.
Illustrious remains:
a hundred heads, bugles, a thousand shows
baring their sky, their silent sunflower.
Strange the surprise in that sky
where unwilling footfalls turn
and voices swell in its pregnant center.
An obscure meadow goes by.
Between the two, wind or thin paper,
the wind, the wounded wind of this death,
this magic death, one and dismissed.
A bird, another bird, no longer trembles.