Audio Poetry:
Tigris River, 2004
by Wayne David Hubbard
Story:
I wrote Tigris River in 2024 – the twentieth anniversary of my deployment in the Second Gulf War. After two decades, I have published little on the experience. This changed when last year I was invited to contribute to a veterans art exhibit in Washington D.C. I painted this unpublished poem on special parchment made from recycled camouflage uniforms. The exhibit now lives online at Behind The Uniform – Click on “Participating Artists”.
About this poem: I wanted to capture the following images — the beauty of some evenings in Al Anbar province; the aftermath of broken cities against calm rivers; Baghdad, Fallujah, Ar Ramadi. . . the Tigris and the Euphrates. These are famous places in world history. But in 2004, we, the Americans, were infants in our knowledge of them.
These scenes are now a permanent part of our experience.
~ WDH
