The photograph on the front page of today's (Sunday's) New York Times is one of the most poignant images I have ever seen captured by a camera. A soldier bound back for Afghanistan is slumped against the wall at the airport, his young wife dozing on his shoulder. He is holding his six-month old baby and gazing at him with such love and such sadness--you can see that it is killing him to leave his family. That picture is worth a thousand million words of anti-war rhetoric. It shot right through my heart.
Saying anything more about it almost seems obscene. I don't know how the photographer got such an unbearably intimate shot. If you haven't seen the paper, go find a copy.
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The care and feeding of a poetry/dance performance collaboration. A log of the creative process, random writer's rantings, love, work, community, play, trapezes and tightropes, the power of poetry, 99% dark chocolate and the meaning of life.
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About Me
- Alison
- I'm a poet, playwright, teacher, and improviser, with an abiding passion for the rights of children.
5 comments:
It's devastating. I saw the picture and couldn't read the rest of the paper that day because I just couldn't get past the sorrow and how I wanted the wars over.
Alison,
I had the same reflex as you. It is sad what that Sunday NYT photo represents. But for me the meaning reaches to the very core of what our society is about. We can rail at the politicians, the corporations, and the moon for that matter, all we want to. But we also need to take a deep and honest look at ourselves, too. As consumers, we benefit from these foreign wars in the form of cheap petroleum, and cheap access to foreign mineral wealth and labor. As consumers, we vote with our wallets each and every time we buy a product. So, we need to be conscious of that and vote accordingly. To be outraged at BP for a travesty like the Gulf oil spill, and not accept some responsibility as a consumer is short sighted and unproductive. We also need to consider our own culpability based on the demands and expectations we have as consumers.
i had the same reaction to this photo. i will cut it out and place it in my office for all to see. don't think i need say more.
I, too, was stunned by the photograph. I stared at it for a very long time. That's all, except to say that I hope he gets to come back to his chance at a long and happy life.
Yes, one of the most striking photos I have seen in a while. It grabs you and pulls you in.
I couldn't figure out who the photo was about. Him or her? Which one of them was leaving? Who had the harder lot? And that's when it hit me, that that was the point. There were no winners and losers in this photo. It was just completely devastating and so wrong.
Thanks for helping relive it again.
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