Building Peace in Iraq

Recently I had the opportunity to spend two weeks in the state of Colorado, giving poetry readings and speaking to communities about a unique American-Iraqi partnership called Direct Aid Iraq (www.directaidiraq.org). In Durango, a mountain community of 16,000 in the northwest corner of the state, I read a poem to audience members at Ft. Lewis College. The setting of this poem is Samawa, a predominantly Shiite city south of Baghdad.