from Here, Bullet
Nov. 6th, 2006 01:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
One of the most moving books of poetry that I have read. Even more so because what it speaks of is happening now, right at this very moment
A Soldier's Arabic
Brian Turner
This is a strange new kind of war where you learn
just as much as you are able to believe.
--Ernest Hemingway
The word for love, habib , is written from right
to left, starting where we would end it
and ending where we might begin.
Where we would end a war
another might take as a beginning,
or as an echo of history, recited again.
Speak the word for death, maut ,
and you will hear the cursives of the wind
driven into the veil of the unknown.
This is a language made of blood.
It is made of sand, and time.
To be spoken, it must be earned.
A Soldier's Arabic
Brian Turner
This is a strange new kind of war where you learn
just as much as you are able to believe.
--Ernest Hemingway
The word for love, habib , is written from right
to left, starting where we would end it
and ending where we might begin.
Where we would end a war
another might take as a beginning,
or as an echo of history, recited again.
Speak the word for death, maut ,
and you will hear the cursives of the wind
driven into the veil of the unknown.
This is a language made of blood.
It is made of sand, and time.
To be spoken, it must be earned.