She brushed out landscapes with her words
as deftly as any impressionist master
and speed-trekked us from where we sat
to scenes of transcendent beauty.
Each day I awaited her verbal canvases
with self-indulgent anticipation.

But one day all was all different.
What was this horrific account of
of unspeakable Afghan tragedy -
A wandering woman whose final defeat,
after all she loved had been butchered,
was hope beyond all recovery
dragging her feet through the dust?

I picked up my heart from out of the soil
to ask her, "were you there?"
She was  - with a physician's bag
for Cindy is a doctor
who eschews a suburban clinic
to defy all danger
and be where life would fail
without her healing craft and care.

Dodging bullets, sputum and mortal threats,
Cindy fights life's most essential battles
and so uplifts the standard of our species.

The next day Cindy painted for us
a verdant mountain scene
whose whispering streams and fragrance
exceeded all I'd every witnessed.

I wonder where she is.

*September, 2013