3 AM in Baghdad

by Marc Beaudin

It’s 3 am in Baghdad,
“City of Peace” according to
Arabian Nights,
those stories that lulled me to sleep,
to soft dreams.
How did we lose our childhood enchantment
with this far-off place
of silks and spices?
And yes, it’s true:
the rivers we will soon send gunboats up–
will make to run red with the blood
of children–
are those rivers; the Tigris and the Euphrates,
that flowed from the Garden of Eden.
Have we forgotten that too?

It’s 3 am in Baghdad
and I’m drinking water that once,
in the geologic measure of things,
carried holy fish from Eden to Mother Sea
I can taste the tears of Eve,
her black eyes reflecting the death-planes
vomiting out their bombs
while the men at the controls
imagine that she is their cold, blue-eyed mother;
they imagine that God doesn’t hate them for their murder

It’s 3 am in Baghdad
and I want to listen to a Miles Davis cd
but I’m afraid to turn off the radio
I’m sorry I ever paid my taxes
I’m burning a candle in my window
wondering if my neighbors can see it
over the glow of their television sets.
In the middle of Kind of Blue
one can imagine a world where blood
runs through the veins of children rather than rivers;
where oil is kept in the drum of the earth
cradling the bones of our ancestors
and the memories of stars

And now, it’s 4 am in Baghdad:
the deadline of our appointed sociopath
the winds have calmed and the sands
have settled, revealing
the braided strands of stars
silently twisting across the darkness.
Eyes that haven’t slept this night,
that haven’t slept well in years,
look up at that luminous river,
mirror of the Biblical trickle below,
and see the coming storm,
the cleansing rain of fire,
“liberation” from the barrel of a gun.