CATHOLIC BROAD WRITES WAR POETRY

   20 years ago we entered the longest-running war in American history. The Afghan war. It was a mistake from the beginning, even though my heart went out to the people of their country, especially the women and children. Pope John II advised us not to enter, saying it was a mistake, and violence never solved anything. But when has any country ever listened to a Pope? Or thought that violence wasn't the way to go?

 

As the war planes took off, bombs began dropping, troops spread out over the country, I started writing some war poetry from the depths of my sore heart. I sent money--of course--to the women and children of Afghan. I rejoiced that women had more rights, that children could go to school,

 and I funded a nifty backpack full of writing materials for school, colored markers, and more for an Afghan child. But still my heart hurt, and in my imagination, I saw myself crouching on the dirt floor of a rural house, shaking as the bombs dropped. This is what I wrote.

    She is bending over

    the blade of her dulled

    knife under the stale bread

    her kerchief stained and

    tattered at the edges

    no point in mending

    no one knows how long

    we have

    They are pretending to have

    lives

    lighting the lights

    at night

    telling prayers with the children

    sour and unwashed

    talking of how it used to be

    The night breaks open

    a plane sears overhead

    air hot as iron

    flattening those below

    fear-pressed knees

    a prayer on dirt

    They have no words

    to pray with any

    more only     

    wordless

    kneeling.

 

    I should put in here that in my early teens I discovered Rupert Brooke, Siegfield   Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen. 

His line,"Was it for this the clay grew tall?" sunk into my bones, and I have never forgotten it, becoming a war protestor during the Vietnam War and doing draft counseling. My family also had a book called "Company K" about World War I, and I will never forget reading about men dying from mustard gas and trapped on the wire.

  If you like Anne Perry, her series on World War I beginning with, "Shoulder the Sky," is utterly riveting and has many, many sharp and hard details about that horrible war. Anyway. Here is the second poem.

    She is in the night

    she is of the night

    her hands are darkness

    holding darkness

    her eyes are bleeding tears

    her mouth opens to stars

    falling

    night streaks over the roof

    of her house

    the open crusted

    roof so thin star shine

    pours through

    Outside men are firing

    Kalishnikovs

    the loud popping sighs

    wake her as she lies

    there

    Night overhead

    Night inside of her

    Night cupped in her hands

    war

    child.

    

    Now the Taliban are back in power. We had the chance in 2001, was it? when the Taliban offered surrender, but we did not take it. Fools that we were. Women are back wearing the Burka. 

 

They are not allowed to attend colleges in the same room as men. They cannot hold official positions etc. etc. My heart hurts for the women and children of this country, even though in the rural areas people are saying at least a bullet hasn't hit their house in some time. I guess that is a kind of progress.... But what will be the fate of this beautiful, war-torn, poor country?