Carriers

Carriers are flying in today,

and I hate their blue-grey bodies

coming in low to land.

I hate the apparent slowness of their descent

moving like thick slugs or film, in slow motion as they circle.

When there are so many, I remember the three weeks

before “we” attacked Iraq.

I remember the last panicked effort of a nation to capitulate, and I remember how “we” ignored it,

and the six behemoths that came bellying in each day over a house where I lived, unafraid,

using the river,

using the shape of the land as orientation.

I remember the name-calling borne by the few who thought no, this is wrong and dared to say so.

I remember Freedom Fries and Freedom Doors as if those things had anything to do with the nation that protested,

anything to do with freedom.

I remember when they flew out loaded up.

Then I think about the air show that comes each year and how much I hate it, 

How I hate the noise and the speed,

how I hate that one of them took my cousin into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico on a routine training mission 

and how he couldn't get out,

and what they found when they were ordered to drag the plane out of the water against their will.

I wonder if they look down now and see me out in the garden,

stopped in my digging to look up with my hand across my eyes.

They remind me of death,

and I wonder if the pilots see me and think about the farms they came from or the farms they end up razing,

I wonder if I look like a good target out there plowing my furrows.

I think of the bombs that "we" dropped,

and how the TV news showed us the outlines of people brokenly crawling across the ground before they stopped,

and how we were expected to cheer for that.

I think about how surprised my nation was that another nation would defend themselves,

as if we are the only ones in the world who love our country.

I think about how the reasons we were given had no factual basis.

I stand safe under jets that fly over women and children and elders and young men and just ordinary men but let loose into other cities in other countries, 

and I wonder how those pilots can bear those thoughts, 

I wonder how the guests who paid to watch their formation flying can bear those thoughts.

Maybe they think of it like dropping a stone into the river and watching the ripples get wider.

And I wonder why anyone would think that this is the best solution to a problem.

I am forced to accept the sacrifices made for me,

though that's not what I want to do today.