I Understand That It's Incredibly Difficult To

But I Remember Being Told That The Truth Does Not Depend On Being Believed.

The War Tried To Kill Us In The Spring. As Grass Greened The Plains Of Nineveh And The Weather Warmed, We Patrolled The Low-slung Hills Beyond The Cities And Towns. We Moved Over Them And Through The Tall Grass On Faith, Kneading Paths Into The Windswept Growth Like Pioneers. While We Slept, The War Rubbed Its Thousand Ribs Against The Ground In Prayer.

It's Not Just: You Get Off The Plane, You're Back Home, Everything's Fine. Maybe The Physical Danger Ends, But Soldiers Are Still Deeply At Risk Of Being Injured In A Different Way.

There Are Definitely Connections Between Poems, But I Wanted Each To Stand On Its Own. I Guess It Goes Back To The Idea Of Trying To Zoom In And Out, And To Modulate, So There Are Different Ways Of Looking At Any Experience For The Reader. Even Having Short Poems And Long Poems - There Has To Be Some Kind Of Variation In The Experience Of Reading As A Whole.

You Want To Fall, That's All. You Think It Can't Go On Like That. It's As If Your Life Is A Perch On The Edge Of A Cliff And Going Forward Seems Impossible, Not For A Lack Of Will, But A Lack Of Space. The Possibility Of Another Day Stands In Defiance Of The Laws Of Physics. And You Can't Go Back. So You Want To Fall, Let Go, Give Up, But You Can't. And Every Breath You Take Reminds You Of That Fact. So It Goes.