After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and place and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
with a little patience

G'Kar is dead. Not the television character, the blogger, who wrote at Obsidian Wings. He and two other American soldiers were killed in an ambush, the first casualties of 2008.

Its funny how on the internet you can talk to people, briefly, about things that matter very much to you, and then drop away again, anonymous and perhaps forgotten. I don't comment frequently on other peoples' posts; my thoughts are too slow and I always find that after thinking for a while about my reflexive reactions to what I read, I reconsider. Nevertheless, I read, and find an odd one-sided friendship in eating the thoughts of strangers. You get to know people, even if you never really talk to them. You read their thoughts and those thoughts become a part of your own thoughts, and even if you disagree you have still become a different person because you read what they wrote.

I read what he wrote, and now he's dead.

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
-But who is that on the other side of you?