Local Iraqis gather around the wreckage of a car bomb attack, Tuesday, July 18, 2006, in the Shiite holy city of Kufa, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq. A suicide car bomber Tuesday detonated explosives among a crowd of laborers across the street from a major Shiite shrine, killing 53 people and wounding 105, officials and witnesses said.
(AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)

Iraqi men gather around the wreckage of a minibus at the site of an explosion in Kufa July 18, 2006. A car bomb hit a group of labourers after they boarded a minibus in a market in a Shi'ite city in Iraq on Tuesday, killing 59 people and sparking clashes between protesters and police, witnesses and officials said.
REUTERS/Ali Abu Shish (IRAQ)

Local Iraqi men mourn over the body of a relative in a car bomb attack, Tuesday, July 18, 2006, in the Shiite holy city of Kufa, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq. A suicide car bomber Tuesday detonated explosives among a crowd of laborers across the street from a major Shiite shrine, killing 53 people and wounding 105, officials and witnesses said.
(AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)

An Iraqi woman mourns over the body of a relative killed in a car bomb attack, Tuesday, July 18, 2006, in the Shiite holy city of Kufa, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq. A suicide car bomber Tuesday detonated explosives among a crowd of laborers across the street from a major Shiite shrine, killing 53 people and wounding 105, officials and witnesses said.
(AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)

Blankets of Bark
by Sherwin Bitsui

Point north, north where they walk
in long blankets of curled bark,
dividing a line in the sand,
smelling like cracked shell,
desert wind, river where they left you
calling wolves from the hills,
        a list of names
growling from within the whirlwind.

Woman from the north,
lost sister who clapped at rain clouds.
We were once there
holding lightning bolts
above the heads of sleeping snakes.

Woman, sister, the cave wants our skin back,
it wants to shake our legs free from salt
and untwist our hair into strands of yarn
pulled rootless from the pocket of a man
who barks when he is reminded of the setting sun.

At 5 A.M., crickets gather in the doorway,
each of them a handful of smoke,
crawling to the house of a weeping woman,
breaking rocks on the thigh of a man stretching,
ordering us to drop coins into her shadow,
saying, "There, that is where we were born."

Born with leaves under our coats,
two years of solitude,
the sky never sailed from us,
we rowed toward it,
only to find a shell,
                a house,
                   and a weeping woman.
- - -

The pity I once had for foreign troops in Iraq is gone. It's been eradicated by the atrocities in Abu Ghraib, the deaths in Haditha and the latest news of rapes and killings. I look at them in their armored vehicles and to be honest- I can't bring myself to care whether they are 19 or 39. I can't bring myself to care if they make it back home alive. I can't bring myself to care anymore about the wife or parents or children they left behind. I can't bring myself to care because it's difficult to see beyond the horrors.

from Riverbend's blog, Baghdad Burning, July 11, 2006

- - -
read This is what John Kerry did today, the dKos diary by lawnorder that inspired this series

love and support the Iraqi people

join CIVIC's "I Care" photo campaign

raed in the middle's blog

support the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)

support CARE

support the victims of torture

read Riverbend's Bagdhad Burning

read Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches

read Today in Iraq

love and support our troops

read Ilona's important blog - PTSD Combat

support Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

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

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

put a meaningful magnet on your car or metal filing cabinet

support a young heart with an old soul peace takes courage (multimedia)

poetry matters poets against war

support the troops and the Iraqi people

witness every day