October

Birthday month is here. To mark it I hope to post
every day, though I don't know that anyone visits,
which is alright.
The photos are from upstate -- fall near the Thousand Islands
and Lake Ontario where my son the soldier is.
In a month he goes overseas, deploys,
goes down range, in military jargon. He is a warrior.
I know this, have known it, honor it. He learns
by doing, always in the thick of it. The doing
he's going to be doing will be dangerous.
This is what he wants and I get it.
I've been writing about this for a few years.
Pages of poems that circle around being
the mother of a warrior. Maybe I'll post some
poems during the month. To illustrate
the intricate delicacy of mothering a warrior.
Of someone who may indeed kill or be killed.
I've been building a house with the carbon
from ancient oracle bones for a few years.
A book, a manuscript, a myth. I don't know
that anyone is interested in this. War weary
war weary is the mantra. So to depict
the warrior's family, which is what
I set out to do in making the house,
this book. You out there may not be a mother
or parent or warrior.

Here is a landay -- a form of folk poetry
from Afghanistan, made by Pashtun women.
An oral and anonymous tradition.

I call. You're stone.
One day you'll look and find I'm gone.