*Arabic: "Thank You" Yesterday, while driving down to Albany to have our chickens processed, I spotted an Amish woman leading a dairy cow and thought of Iraq. I spent most of my second tour in Iraq in rural areas between Fallujah and Ramadi. We lived in the villages, patrolled among the people every day, and glimpsed an entirely different world when we didn't have to look at it through gun sights. We treated Iraqis with respect and dignity, knowing that the majority weren't the enemy, but that the enemy hid among them. In the counter-intuitive calculus of counterinsurgency, we brought about security by making ourselves vulnerable, by getting close to people, by interacting. I would never call myself a poet, but a few years ago at a poetry slam during the MOSES Organic Farming Conference, this memory hit me all at once and I scratched out the poem just in time to read it on stage. The poem describes that same memory from Iraq that hit me again yesterday. Shukran
We patrolled through pink-petaled orchards Swept for IEDs in alfalfa fields When Marines and gun trucks escaped my view War and Time evaporated. A hedgerow fringed the Euphrates Its tangled fingers sweeping the ocean sky Like the hedgerow on our farm’s bottom pasture Across the wide, muddy creek. Squad position reports through my earpiece Crackled me to the present Following my order To not disturb livestock or gardens The squad skirted wide around a grazing dairy cow Tied to a stake in the field. The bony cow still spooked, tore at the rope, Tangled her hooves and horns And thrashed on the ground Her once-gentle brown eyes drawn wide with fright. I slung my rifle behind my shoulder and approached her side. “Easy girl, easy” Bracing her front legs with my knees, I rubbed her shoulder. “Easy girl, easy.” And untangled the rope, Her flesh twitching under my hands. A burka-clad young woman kneeled at the cow’s head. Her delicate hand brushed mine across the animal’s leg. She breathed a startled whisper through her veil, Her once-gentle brown eyes drawn wide with fright. “Shukran”
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Ryan Erisman
Former Marine Infantry Officer. Iraq Vet. Interested in Regenerative Agriculture at any scale. Archives
June 2024
Categories |
Odyssey Farm, LLC.
The Odyssey Farm Journal
Odyssey Farm, LLC
|
Dane County Climate Champion
|
608.616.9786
|
Copyright © 2016