The Green Oven

How is it that weather can have such a profound effect on our lives? From hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, blizzards, earthquakes, tsunamis, drought, and global warming...weather conditions have been known to change the course of history. We take it for granted for the most part, until the thermostat starts to go up or down to the extreme and we are forced to accept the limits of our human form to withstand all but a very narrow range of temperature variance. It was a beautiful day in our little part of the world today, sunny and in the 70's. While in Iraq...the temperature reached 105 degrees! I spent most of the day in an air conditioned (temperature controlled) studio, rehearsing with dancers who get "hot" very quickly once they start moving, but, really they have no idea what real heat is all about. I then jumped into my car to find that my recently repaired at great expense A/C, had gone on the fritz again. I recall the exact moment that the humidity level in the car changed! I have a finely tuned radar when it comes to temperature...and this was not making me happy. As I drove home, with my window down to allow for air circulation, I began composing the irate phone call I would be making to the Toyota dealership on Monday. Then I had to stop and think about the heat levels currently being experienced by the soldiers in Iraq. It is damn hot there...I for one freely admit I would lose my all of my marbles and my mind in that kind of heat within a matter of hours...no let's revisit that...in a matter of minutes! I really don't know how the soldiers do what they do under these kinds of extreme weather conditions. So at that point I sort of stopped whining about my car A/C. After reading some stories about the Styker and how hot it can be inside this rolling monster, I decided to try to write about it...I would never presume to know what that is like...but, I just wrote from the heart what I felt about what I read. The title of the poem comes from some Stryker brigade soldiers who named the Stryker the "green oven" for obvious reasons.

The Green Oven

They call me the “Green Oven.”
I am rolling hell on eight wheels.
I am hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Preheat to 450 degrees of separation.

Give me your tired, your poor
Warriors, yearning to be free.

Shut the door.
Cramped and dark, hide in my belly.

Sit and stew with the fear that simmers
just beneath the surface of your fragile mind.
Let me fry your brain and bake the life right out of you.

I’ll take my pound of flesh in sweat and tears,
Until it is time to send you spewing forth onto
another war torn street.