On Palm Sunday

Soldiers resting under the palm trees in Iraq, near the town of Karmah.
(Photo from Michael J. Totten’s foreign correspondence blog)

The children shout
We’re here! We’re here!
See their first palm
at Florida’s border.

Bodies relaxing
under palm trees;
the cooling breezes
Bora-Bora

Tall palms stand
outside of Baghdad
giving shade to weak and weary
drawing water from a well

tossing down the sheep skin bag
smiling when they hear the splash
water cold from in the earth
to slake the weak and weary’s thirst

A stranger in a stranger land
a soldier of the Western Empire
sits and watches weak and weary
camels, donkeys, palm trees, sand

while a Tampa palm he knows and loves
shades his momma in her yard
as she works and tends her garden
drawing water from a well

A donkey and a man approach;
a sudden breeze, the palm fronds clatter;
momma’s taking him to church
all dressed up in Sunday’s best

Soldier hears the high fronds chatter
as the palm trees wave and cheer
in his mind he hears hosanna
a man on a donkey drawing near

Soldier’s heard the song before
long ago and far away
remembers momma pinning palm
lovingly on his Sunday vest.

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http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/02/guns-in-the-des.php

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for those who have never heard the hymns of the Eastern church in Arabic

“God is with us.”

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