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Vietnam
You’re a humid green wound
a lost pearl of time
at the edge of my youth
steeped in an old struggle
to be your own and out from under
the other, the foreigner
I was placed there by powers
I was too young to understand
and somehow I’ve died to a blessing
that might have been
We were wounded, cut open
blown apart in your paddies
in your cities, jungles and highlands
our blood mingled with yours
in the soil and water
it became a mist in the air
For me, everything fell apart
the center didn’t hold
there was chaos
out of which I stumbled
a crippled distrustful spirit
It is clear there is no righteousness
no place where the established
hand of power can exercise
force and will and create good
and there never has been
A lifetime later I am still learning it.
I see another people and another place
through the window of our wound
And these people and this place
have forgotten us
not our history
but the pain and falleness
of the daily body count
of the jellied flames licking
your children’s flesh from bone
Shall I forget or remember?
I came to you as you were
smeared in blood and smoke
I recognize you as I am
swept along by event and history
A river fierce with storm
crashing along its old course
tearing the banks, rolling boulders
toppling trees, scouring away
and piling the wreckage
on an ancient plain
I choose to remember
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