Aja Beech

SNOW OVER KABUL: THE BAGRAM AIRBASE BOMBING

That old white man,
he told the talk show host
he was celebrating as he flew
in the doomsday machine

high over the Atlantic Ocean
on his way to Kabul from New York City.

Even from that altitude
he thought of building on
a war, built for decades
on shifting sands.

Demanding more,
pleading with anyone who
may be on the other end
of the camera pointed at him.

Demanding they give their lives
for things like, his plane ride

through snow formed clouds over Kabul.
Where 23 of the hundreds of thousands
of people he demanded are dead
as soon as he arrives that day,

because he arrived
that February day.

I've only seen pictures
of snow in Kabul

and in those pictures the sky
is bright with a radiant sun
with clouds so large and white
you can feel the chill.

That old white man loves to tell
stories about flying through those clouds
bringing that chill to the earth
with his descent.

Putting that chill into 23 officers without
even a mention of them, not one.


Aja reads "Snow Over Kabul...":



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Aja confesses: "In 2008, I saw an interview with Dick Cheney on television in which he was describing the February 2007 bombing at Bagram Airbase. People who declared themselves Taliban took responsibility for the bombing, which took the lives of 23 people on the base, saying Cheney was the intended target."

Photo by Sean Bolton

AJA BEECH is an independent freelance author writing about social issues and the arts, primarily in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley, for news outlets like WHYY’s Newsworks, CBS Local Online and The Huffington Post. In 2010, she received a Leeway Art and Change Grant to compile to art and poetry concerned with the death penalty. In 2011, Beech was named one of Philadelphia’s Creative Connectors. Her poem, "for you women", was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012. Activism and organizing is highly intertwined with her non-fiction work. More over her work can be found online at www.processpress.wordpress.com follow on Twitter @ajabeech.