MEDITATION CASE

Myth of Glory

1.
The orphan boy
has one arm,
he stares at me
from the side of the road;
a lifetime of hate
in eight short years.

2.
We storm the village,
it is invested by VC
wrapped in villager's cloth.
They fire AK-47's.
We return fire, kill them.
From a hootch we hear voices,
we yell, throw out your weapons,
come out, with your hands up!
(pigeon Vietnamese.)
They answer with curses and fire.
We fill the hootch with lead,
toss in a grenade.
Silence.
Warily, we look inside,
all dead.
A young woman
clutches an infant to her breast;
welded together
in a river of blood.

3.
She is young, yet old,
browned by the sun.
Barefooted
she toils in
the dark corridors of night,
the small dank rooms;
repeated heaving, drunken breath.

4.
The Saigon street
is filled with people,
the sounds of life energizing,
the business of living
intensely pursued.
A shell explodes, then another
and another.
The Saigon street
is filled with the sounds of death.

5.
The boy, no more than ten,
glares at me.
From beneath his garment,
he flashes his weapon.
Give me a noble cause,
telll me why,
I had to kill a ten-year old boy.

6.
We are on patrol,
dark night, steaming jungle.
The sawgrass cuts.
We step warily, listening for a sound;
trip-wires, booby traps abound,
meld with the earth,
waiting for one more step.

7.
The nurse came down
with the chopper,
its blades whirling, churning air.
They take our wounded.
The nurse is young, rumpled;
the lines of exhaustion, heavy
on her face.
She tends our wounded with the
sure hand of an angel of mercy.
I hunger for her.
I ache for her soft touch.

8.
We are on a two-man LP
fused to the undergrowth
of the jungle.
The moon peers between
the tall-bladed grass,
giving us vision,
then retreats behind night clouds.
Our ears become our antenna,
tuned to detect a suspicious sound.
It is difficult.
All sounds are suspicious.

9.
Today,
I see a monk burning;
self-immolation.
He sits on the damp ground as a budda,
his hands clasped in silent prayer.
The flames flare up;
as ash, he disappears.
Still, the war goes on.
Tomorrow, another monk will burn
in flaming protest,
and every day a monk will burn
and still, the war will go on.

10.
There is little thought
of rioting, flag-burning,
our own venomous vilification.
We fight because we are here,
there is no alternative.
We did not burn our draft cards
and run off to Canada.

11.
There is a place called home.
I don't know where that is.