Iraq War Grief Daily Witness (photo) Day 80

image: ATTENTION EDITORS – VISUALS COVERAGE OF SCENES OF DEATH AND INJURY Iraqi men watch a charred body being carried after a car bomb attack in a market area of Baghdad June 27, 2005. A car bomb outside a Sunni mosque in a mainly-Shi’ite part of Baghdad killed four civilians and wounded 29, police sources said. REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz

Cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.

image and text below the fold

from The Gates of Damascus
by James Elroy Flecker

This is the song of the East Gate Warden
When he locks the great gate and smokes in his garden.

Postern of Fate, the Desert Gate, Disaster’s Cavern, Fort of Fear,
The Portal of Baghdad am I, and Doorway of Diarbekir.

The Persian Dawn with new desires may net the flushing mountain spires:
But my gaunt buttress still rejects the suppliance of those mellow fires.

Pass not beneath, O Caravan, or pass not singing. Have you heard
That silence where the birds are dead yet something pipeth like a bird?

Pass not beneath! Men say there blows in stony deserts still a rose
But with no scarlet to her leaf–and from whose heart no perfume flows.

Wilt thou bloom red where she buds pale, thy sister rose? Wilt thou not fail
When noonday flashes like a flail? Leave nightingale the caravan!

Pass then, pass all! “Baghdad!” ye cry, and down the billows of blue sky
Ye beat the bell that beats to hell, and who shall thrust you back? Not I.

The Sun who flashes through the head and paints the shadows green and red,
The Sun shall eat thy fleshless dead, O Caravan, O Caravan!

And one who licks his lips for thirst with fevered eyes shall face in fear
The palms that wave, the streams that burst, his last mirage, O Caravan!

And one–the bird-voiced Singing-man–shall fall behind thee, Caravan!
And God shall meet him in the night, and he shall sing as best he can.

And one the Bedouin shall slay, and one, sand-stricken on the way
Go dark and blind; and one shall say–“How lonely is the Caravan!”

Pass out beneath, O Caravan, Doom’s Caravan, Death’s Caravan!
I had not told ye, fools, so much, save that I heard your Singing-man.

– – –

This diary series is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

support the Iraqi people
support the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)
support CARE
support the victims of torture
support the fallen
support the troops
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
read this soldier’s blog
witness every day

Author: RubDMC

I'm a PROUD Massachusetts Liberal who lives just a short stroll from the site of the first armed resistance to another insane tyrant named George in 1775.