Beautiful

Since I’ve been here I’ve seen some wondrous things. Marvelous things I never figured I would have the chance to look at. All of them so simple, but placed so well that all I could do was stop and look and smile.

I was in Baghdad getting a vehicle repaired and the buildings, the original ones occupied by U.S. Forces; they stood out against the environment like colorfully bright buttons on the greyest of coats. Tall structures and wide structures with spires and towers shooting upwards into the sky – domes of tiles, inlaid with gold, black and blue designs rounded perfectly over these beautifully archaic buildings with modern mechanized infantry vehicles parked adjacent. I wanted to stay for weeks and explore each one; I wanted to run my hands over the worn marble and etched writing whose meaning I would never endure to understand. But I didn’t have the time, so the monolithic palaces I saw reflected on the surface of still lakes so beautifully are kept inside of me as only memories.

Next to a bathroom there is a small grove of palm trees, three maybe four in total. In the daylight they look poor and unhealthy, a shallow stick of a tree which won’t even provide shade if it were asked to. In the night though, with the unintentional spotlight pointed upwards to the palms, the moon creeping softly across the sky in the distance, and the cool night air gently brushing past, they are the essence of beauty here. Every night in which I walk past I smile and look longingly toward them, as if concentration alone will keep that image fresh forever. As if I’m missing something important but I’m so close to finding it all out.

In Kalsu every night the moon shines in the audience of hundreds of stars. Constellations I never bothered to learn; never cared to know – they gleam downward to whoever cares to look up and acknowledge their presence. On any one of my many walks in the dark in this place I can see them, a reminder that wherever I am, it really isn’t that far away. A reminder for myself that this place, this boring pathetic desolate beautiful place I’m spending time in, it’s so close to home, wherever that may be. And I love it.