Kabul

The storm came from the west,
grey and black and blue and glorious,
a reverse nightfall.
An anvil cloud,
ferocious in its pregnant beauty,
dwarfs the mountain cradle.

Above, the pale blue stretches to its lazy limit
with no idea of the barrage to come

But I am shielded,
protected by a warm embrace of sunshine,
as the storm, the wolf, skirts and prods
but the shepherdess' pen holds fast

and, safe, I am simply struck by such natural sublimity.

A torrent pierces another portion of the pen.
While I am secure and serene and unaware
and staring at the wrong threat, my head in the clouds,
brains and fingers and eyes and ears and
rent meat come plodding down.
A man, a bomb, an abattoir.
A baby cries on mother's corpse.

Indifferent, the skies are pretty.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/world/asia/19afghan.html