Hindu Kush Mountains
Afghanistan

EN PAZ Y LIBERTAD OBREMOS

On a high place over the walls I see 

A village captured by night
Except when the moon is high
Above the Hindu Kush
When the rooftops become pools
Of lapis moon
No one knows this place but me 

In daylight the village grows

From lunar fields of pummeled stone
From forty years of war
And as many enemies  

They used to work behind these walls     

Before a bomb in a crowd sent them home   
Now I see them in the distance
Ink blots on a gray canvas
Digging in the rubble with picks and shovels
Remembering the vineyards and crops
That once painted this valley emerald green

Carved into a viga in San Ignacio, Texas

“En Paz y Libertad Obremos” 
May we work in peace and freedom

2/19/18

Afghanistan

Soviet Bunker

“[Jimi Hendrix told me that he] dreamed of amassing musicians from all over the world in Woodstock and they would sit in a field in a circle and play and play.  It didn’t matter what key or tempo or what melody they would keep on playing through their discordance until they found a common language.  Eventually they would record this abstract universal language of music in his new studio.  ‘The language of peace, you dig?’” 

            -from Just Kids by Patti Smith

Cuervo, New Mexico