Closer to Qaeda
[a takeaway poem from page A-1 of The New York Times, Wednesday, March 6, 2002]

March 5
withering fire today
in these snow-
covered mountains,
a final
stand.

the fiercest
months of
implacable
nightfall,
shuttling up into the
heart of the
times,
90 miles north,
where
The enemy
is going to
die

>From a vantage point on the mountainside,
under cover of darkness
repulsed with heavy
fire that
took the life of the
enemy
resolve.