This Year's View

Alone on a river tower my thoughts full of sorrow
The moonlight like the water, the water like the sky
Where is the person with whom I shared the moon?
The view isn’t quite the same as last year.

- Chao Ku, Reflections at a River Tower
(From Red Pine, Trans., Poems of the Masters: China’s Classic Anthology of T’ang and Sung Dynasty Verse)

About this time last year, I was embarking on a cross-country road trip with J.

Today, J is in Afghanistan, listening to the Taliban preach and pray over loudspeakers.

So, yeah.