Here is one of the first things I wrote that I was really proud of.

 

Hindu Kush

 

Broken dreams and screaming cerebration

dismantle my convictions of yesteryear.

Spectres of stalwart foundations whisper illusions

from across the chasm of history.

 

Ancient earth

crushed under the soles of boots,

as indomitable as a Macedonian phalanx

but its soil shifts surely as a routed charge.

 

Sealed in the timeworn mountains

is the blood of invaders

feeding nutrients to violet blooms.

 

Cracked creaking fortress walls

are the exposed strata

of remains from millennia of foreign occupations.

 

Nights illuminated only by stars labour,

Orion’s scowl and the night’s highway

lure hearts to the hearths of faraway home.

The pale pin light hewn sky

is the accomplice to self-examination.

 

Crippled will, worn away from

continuously crashing waves of resistance,

force even the strongest to weep,

to retreat.

 

The perceptions of conquerors may change,

but those mountains stay the same.