That is touching and evocative. The forests and the lapis are beautiful. The Khyber Pass is ruggedly impressive. The music is a bit jarring to the untrained ear, and those who understand it lose themselves to the rhythms. Lapis looks like very light blue crushed gravel until polished. Not impressive at all.

As it happens, last week my mother had me take in two pictures of the Khyber to have someone make a panorama. There are three roads visible, one built by Alexander the Great, one by the British way back when, and the newer one.

It's also a rough country. The British outposts were one easy day apart. Then, as now, anyone caught out in the countryside could easily give their souls to God - everything else they had including themselves belonged to the locals.

The foreigners who have lived there aand Afghans with whom I have talked agree on the procedure for living outside the city centers. There are two.

Born to it.

Or armed to the teeth, with a whole bunch of friends who are also armed to the teeth. Sleep in a circle with your heads pointed out, dressed. If you're feeling rather spunky, want to live dangerously, leave the safety on.

That may change someday, but doesn't seem to have been any different since time began. The Allies may have helped overthrow the Taliban, but the Afghans still run the place. No one has conquered it.

The problem the Russians would have had is that the Afghans would have fought a thousand years, never given up, much like the Vietnamese with the Chinese, French and US.

Thanks for posting the poem. It's great.

Arf