In the decade-old war, there is still more. An ambush in the night,
a firefight in the Afghan hills,
an area not to be entered until cleared.
Marines call it a kill zone.

How can any of us avoid thinking of danger here
is a mystery.
In spite of all the risks
how the Corporal's gunfire provided the cover for the escape.

"I did what I did," he says.

Everyone in the village was trapped.
So, he went in to save them, 37 men and women,
Aghans and soldiers.
The red-haired Kentucky man, a grown-up boy really,
Dakota Meyer wanted to follow orders
but not when it came to this.
Against orders, he went back
again and again,
saved all but four of the soldiers, mourning their loss even now, as if
his compassion is all he has left to give.

On the day of the ambush the kill zone was too dangeous to enter
but he went there anyway to save his friends.
He rode into the gunfire of the 50 insurgents, into the town with all its lights on.

"You do not think about it until you look back," he says.

The hazel-eyed man doing what he believes we all wanted him to do,
save everyone left behind
in the only way he knew how, and now,
the baby-blue ribbon draped around his neck, the dark gold star
hanging on the chest of the young soldier come this far. home again,

home again and safe.

© Charlene Langfur


US Marine Dakota Meyer awarded Medal of Honor
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Charlene is an organic gardener and a graduate of the S.U. graduate writing program.

Some of them happen to all of us.
Like this one. Or that one.
With unexpected recoveries,

returns to life that leave us breathless.
Today I believe the same,
look after
what continues. Night become morning,
look after thin slow-moving lines of darkness
turning to light.
I get up out of bed,

trace light's flow. Look to see who made it home,
soldiers home from Iraq,
Afghanistan.
Made it back uninjured,

saved men and women beating out
the crush of chance.
Inexplicably they are on another day alive
among us

a woman recovers from a gunshot to the head.
The undoing of the worst.
Like flower making it through
a long hot summer.
All of us relieved on such a day.

Is it so? All we can do for one
another exceeds all else? Healing.
Salience. All we know.
Again, tomorrow maybe.

The woman with the injury comes back.
Readying herself to go.
Unbowed

anything is possible.

For Rep. Gabby Giffords January 2011

© Charlene Langfur

Six Months After Tucson Shooting, White House Readies Gun Control Stance
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Charlene is an organic gardener and a graduate of the S.U. graduate writing program.

I listen to the names and try to imagine the faces.
In the desert three soldiers died today.
The news on TV is 24 hours a day.
The weatherman's in the desert . Checking for rain. Rain's coming. No one
expects it. Baghdad is hot.
Rain is rare, a gift.
And the names are read quietly. Paced. A number. Another.

Inside the house with the AC on and the TV on,
how easy here to forget what living in the hot sun is like.
In the desert. A sweet taste of water under the sun. The gift of shade.
A palm in the middle of danger.

And the bombs in the sun in this season of reading the names.
A child sits on the curb in the sun in a new pair of sneakers.
He is completely afraid in Baghdad.
The palm is the desert, oranges on the tiny toy truck
in front of him.
The soldiers names are read each day.
All of this, what sounds beautiful in a single day, soldier's names,
oranges,
a boy, palms, going home, a small finely made truck, a toy really.
No talk of this on the TV. Only talk of time lines, troop numbers,
poll numbers, numbers of days engaged, how only a few troops are needed
to do this job.
Danger in the middle of a continent of so much desert.
The plan for the war is to get on with the plan. Forward and not backwards.

But all I know today is about the rhythm of the speech, how it comes
back again and again. Talk of rain. Oranges. Palms swaying.
Things that stay.
And how the buildings all look the same if they are bombed. The landscape,
the window frame where the lavender grew like crazy hours before,
lavender to ward off harm.
A house in Mosel gone. A report of spectacular attacks.

This morning the sky is cloudless and blue again. Today they will read the names.

© Charlene Langfur

Iraq Veteran Returns To Baghdad As A Tourist
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Charlene is an organic gardener and a graduate of the S.U. graduate writing program.