The
blood moon rises through a veil of desert sand. It is 3am. The haze that seems
to never lift creates a beautiful pane through which I see the sun and moon
awake. When I flew into Iraq from Turkey a month ago the dawn was a blanket of
blues and pinks like I hadn't seen since leaving here years ago. Now a hazy
crimson moon has been on the rise all this week. It lingers there...and bleeds
down on me, as it rises out of the dusty haze and into the clear black night.
To
say I actually love it here may seem like lunacy. But somehow I think I do. I think only people who have come
here from another world can understand what the desert does to you. I imagine I
could ask 10 people back home who have been here in the last 10 years...serving
in the war, as contractors, etc, and 8 of them would say they miss it. All 8
would swear that when they were here there were times that they hated it. I
guess I would be #9. It's in my bones...the new marrow that I build an
uncertain yet hopeful life upon.
-Jim
Franks
