Morning Rounds 3
Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30 inches, 2008

Military artist in Kandahar
by Sandra Renew, 2014
School of Music poet, Canberra, Australia
in response to Morning Rounds 3

Inside the wire,
soldiers and firearms and
nurses wearing handguns
surround me.

The heat of the white sun beats me into the brown sand.
The low key colours of camouflage subdue
and reduce what I see.
Fine dust stops my breath,
grates on my teeth,
irritates my eyes.
The pulsing thump of Black Hawks
reverberates with my headache.

The Afghan girl and the large Western soldier
are linked by the orange fruit,
as you, carefully, segment and pass it,
piece by piece, to the girl,
immobile, quiet, in the overlarge wheelchair.

The lens of the alien, discomposed artist,
the lens of the small, watchful girl,
the lens of the tired, armed, vigilant medical orderlies,
through every sweat-smeared, sand-grazed, dusty lens,
we see the collateral damage of war.