Monday, March 10, 2008

World Without Color...

As generations of soldiers have done, I sat in the back of a truck yesterday looking out the open back.
Something about sitting in the dark, looking over the helmets of the soldiers, seeing the world pass by you, watching the retaining strap flex as the vehicle jarrs along. It makes one feel a commonality with the truck and the people in it. We all ride silently, looking at the blown up dirt.

The place where I am now has no color. Dust envelops and drowns everything. Concertina wire, vehicles, uniforms, faces, everything becomes the color of the dust and blends in with the ground.

I remember seeing pictures of the astronauts on the moon and everything was a harshly sunlit grey moonscpape aginst the infinite black of space.

Sky and ground are one here. The earth and sky are blended into one, and there is no sunlit terrain today. The couds makes everything obscure. It is like seeing things in a faint black and white tv, but you are watching it through an old dust covered mirror.

Perhaps not the best description...but things are completly washed out and blank.

I'm doing ok...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner mentions that there is "...water, water everywhere..." More of the same here, except with sand, eh?

Anonymous said...

Army poet, I think I may have found Bruno...yes THAT Bruno...the DUTCH one, not the Italian!

Come home safe, brother!

DBJ