Weekly Poem: 'TV, Evening News'

**By Marie Ponsot** _--seen on CNN, autumn 2005, Afghanistan_ It's a screenful of chaos but the cameraman's getting good framing shots from behind one woman's back. The audio's poor. The shouts are slices of noise. I don't know the languages.   No hot hit heroes are there. No wicked people are there.   Achilles is not there, or Joshua either. Rachel is not there, nor Sojourner Truth. Iwo Jima flag boys? not there. Twin Towers first defenders? not there. My children are thank God not there any more or less than you and I are not there.   I safe screen-watch. A youth young in his uniform signals his guard squad twice: OK go, to the tanks and the cameramen: OK go.   The tank takes the house wall. The house genuflects. The tank proceeds. The house kneels. The roof dives. The woman howls. Dust rises. They cut to the next shot.   The young men and the woman breathe the dust of the house which now is its prayer. A dust cloud rises, at one with the prayer of all the kneeling houses asking to be answered and answerable anywhere.   "Marie Ponsot":http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=5453 has published several books of poems, including most recently, "Easy" (2009), "Springing" (2002) and "The Bird Catcher" (1998), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the 1999 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. "Click here":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/entertainment/poetry/profiles/poet_ponsot.html for her recently aired profile on the NewsHour.