Letter From Northern Iraq

I write to let you know that I am well and that I arrived at Contingency Operating Base Q-West, Iraq, on June 23.

We trained in Kuwait a couple weeks, at Camp Buehring about 100 kms west of Kuwait City. We stayed in large, air-conditioned Quonset tents, steel framed with an arched ceiling, a door with an ante-chamber at either end. Seventy cots lined the walls.

I experienced my first Kuwaiti sandstorm the day after I landed, and a fine powder of sand settled on all my gear in the tent--including my laptop. It reminded me of Mount Pinatubo's gray ash, which erupted when I was stationed at Subic Bay, Philippines. I remember waking with a fine coat dust that cascaded from my face and chest when I sat up.

The Kuwaiti sand was powdery, and the constant June wind kept the air dusty. First light was around 0430, and by 0630 the sun hung well above the horizon, its white light filtering through a tan haze. Two days after I arrived, miraculously, it rained. Long whips of lightning cracked, and a brief but heavy shower soaked the sand. Sparrows bathed in puddles that evaporated within an hour or so.

The sparrows looked the same as those in the States--maybe they're not indigenous--but they behaved differently. They seemed more aggressive--deserts surely foster this trait. One would land near, on a concrete T-wall, for instance, and eye me hungrily; moreover, it would pant like a dog, its beak wide enough to see the tongue.

The heat, by mid-day, rose to 110-115 degrees and higher. If I walked a short distance, I'd sweat profusely, but if I paused in the scarce shade the breeze dried my clothes, leaving a powder of salt stains.

I'm fascinated by the desert. True, it is inhospitable and harsh, and I would hate it but for the air conditioned tents, but what interests me are the bloated efforts of U.S. forces to control the environment. Dozers push long, high berms around American bases, but the sand flows over these like springmelt water over levees. Indeed, it resembles the grand efforts to control the Mississippi River, which goes where it chooses in the end.

These ultimately futile struggles are metaphors of American hubris. We delay defeat and call it victory.

Compared to Kuwait, northern Iraq is heavenly. There is sparse vegetation, but at least there are trees and grass and nettles. This morning is sunny and already hot, about 100 degrees, but by evening a cool breeze will flow down from the northeastern mountains. The most common tree here is the eucalyptus. Yesterday evening, as I returned from the cavernous and bountiful chow hall, I heard pigeons cooing in a shady eucalyptus grove.

The stones here differ from those in Kuwait. Apparently slate, they are dark gray and often flat and ovular. The little ones would make wonderful stones for skimming across a placid pond. In fact, this morning I stood at the edge of a breathless reservoir with a handful of small, flat stones. One of them skipped 15 times, no kidding. Trumpeter pigeons circled my feat, and my triumphant whooping flushed five magpies from the reeds near shore. I'm going to collect quarter and half-dollar -sized stones, enough for a board game.

What geologic forces created these stones, I wonder. I suspect that they have eroded from the northeastern mountains and that sand, primarily, has worn them smooth.

Q-West used to be an Iraqi Air Force base, and numerous structures still stand from that period. They are sturdy, built of poured concrete thirty or forty years ago. One section of the base shows the lingering effects of U.S. bombing. The debris has been cleared, of course, revealing the foundation of a command post, but a wrinkled water tower still leans against the earth, rusty and quiet. Ho hum.

Q-West pumps its water from the Tigris River, about 20 miles east of here. Nearly three quarters of what the base sucks from the river disappears into the many villages along the way, siphoned to sustain farming and so on. The U.S. forces have ignored, if not condoned, this practice because it fosters a grudging tolerance among people who would otherwise target Q-West, which has experienced relative calm for months. Water is the currency. Water is the power. The Americans give the Iraqis back their water. Nice Americans.

During early July, a summer shamal, a steady northwest wind, shouldered the base, and the dust was uncommonly heavy. A local Iraqi said that he'd never seen such in his lifetime. At times a powdery chalk hung in the still air like a dirty, gray fog. Hair and eyelashes whitened, and it settled in every crease and wrinkle of skin and clothing. We sweated milk. Other times, the hot wind intensified, bearing a rust-orange dust. This is called "red air," a thick, tarnished cloud engulfing the landscape. We had a hard time seeing fifty feet in such conditions. Wind blew dirt in our eyes, noses, and mouths, so we tucked our bandanas up under our wrap-around glasses. People stayed inside. Few vehicles braved the roads.

Imagine wading through such fathoms of dust. Only the faintest, stained sunlight pierces the flooded landscape. You shoulder the red murk, head tucked, windward eye closed and leeward eye squinting against sand-spray. To chart your course, you follow a row of large, rough stones edging the buried road. A eucalyptus tree rustles and sways against the wind, spilling silt from its dry leaves; pigeons ruffle dust from their wings and coo irritably. Your silt-saturated scarf fails your aching lungs. The drowned headlights of a lone vehicle tremble past. Currents of dust flow over concrete walls and wash against vague buildings skulking behind them. You are like a sea-forgotten ghost scuttling along the boulevard of an ancient, sunken city.

This immense dust storm kept Q-West isolated for a week--no flights in or out, no convoys. That meant no mail, no chow resupply, no supplies, no arriving troops. The sky cleared, finally, but I'll always remember July 4, 2009, at COB Q-West.

I'm at the Internet Cafe in the MWR (Moral, Welfare, & Recreation) Center. This is a sizable tent with numerous rooms. Besides the Internet Cafe, there's a small paperback library, a pool room, a video game room, a theater, a large gymnasium, several television viewing areas, a telephone center, and (what decent MWR would be without?) a ping pong table!

I finished Dickens' David Copperfield on a cot at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, and I wrote a couple poems there, too.





IN THE EVENT OF ACTUAL INDIRECT FIRE
MOVE TO THE NEAREST BUNKER

Your words and I danced
mazurkas in the moonlit desert.
They have green eyes, your words,
and sharp teeth. I danced wearing nothing
but skivvies and flip-flops,
sand fleas be damned.
Your words wore a Gypsy's dress.

Why do your words
have "USMC" tattooed on one ankle
and a fist on the other?

Your words led me
to a field of smooth stones.
I said that they looked like devils’ eggs.
Your words said the stones were loaves
kneaded by the thinnest fingers of sand
and baked for ten thousand years.

We picnicked in that field.
I made a ring of stones
in which to spread
a quilted poncho liner.

From a birch bark basket
your words laid out
a cup of raisin challah,
a dish of gefilte fish,
a platter of honey-breaded chicken,
a bowl of avocado salad,
three bottles of wine,
and a pint of Gzhelka vodka.

I brought a cooler of ice,
a canteen cup,
and a goose down pillow
for your words.

Your words lit Shabbat candles.
It isn’t Shabbat yet, I said.

Shut your goyim mouth,
your words said,
and kiss me deadly.

I love that movie, I said.






THROUGH THE HANDLE OF A COFFEE CUP

Your words were waiting outside my tent
near the concrete bunker,
sporting wrap-around sunglasses
and a Bedouin burqah hung with silver coins.

And you don’t seem to understand
that I can read your mind
is what your words told me.

A sparrow landed near and eyed us,
beak open like a panting dog.
Venus, the evening star,
watched us too, through dust and darkly.

When the last days come
we will recognize each other,
your words said. We will see
ourselves for the first time,
dancing in a sepia desert.

I am drowning, we will say.
Help me to breathe.

We will see visions.

A hot wind carried the day’s last
dry thoughts into evening.
A plastic bag snagged on the concertina,
fluttering like a tattered flag.

I don’t know how metal rusts,
I said, when it never rains here.

The way we really are,
your words said,
is like Sam Cooke singing—
I was born by the river in a little tent,
oh, and just like the river
I’ve been running ever since.

What I’d like to know, I said,
is how long it takes a year or so ago
to sift to earth, to settle like coffin dust,
a breathless spiral, sure,
but brighter than these stars.

Tomorrow morning, your words told me,
the sun will pierce this brown haze,
passing thin and small and white
through the handle of your coffee cup.