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Poem
After an particularly emotional session with my counselor a few months
ago, I found myself in too intense a state to return to work right away.
So I stopped at my favorite restaurant, Thie^n Thanh in Seattle, to eat
and calm down, and to reflect on the session. I ordered some banh u'o't
to^m thit nu'o'ng and thought about the two men whose professional
capacities have made such a different in my personal life.
About Dr. Beijing Men, whom I came to for herbal help in losing weight,
and who, with a few bags of herbs and some extremely fine needles, cured
me of the stutter that had crippled me socially until a year before.
And how much nicer my life had been since.
And of Steve Gary, whose office I had just come from, who was helping me
to slough off the scars of years of pain and insecurity and find my
place in the world as an articulate man. And with whose help I had just
realized that I wanted---and deserved---a life of my very own.
After I'd stared out the window long enough, I picked up a copy of Viet
Magnet, a bilingual newspaper for the local Vietnamese community, and
ran across the poem copied below. Maybe it was my vulnerable and
generous mood, but reading this and thinking about my fine Vietnamese
friends and what they lived through made my eyes sting with those hot
tears that have little to do with grief or sadness.
===============================
Shrapnel Shards on Blue Water
by Le Thi Diem Thuy
dedicated to her sister Le Thi Diem Trinh
everyday i beat a path to you
beaten into the melting snow/the telephone poles
which separate us like so many signals of slipping time
and signposts marked in another language
my path winds and unwinds, hurls itself toward you
until it unfurls before you
all my stories at your feet
rocking against each other like marbles
down a dirt incline
listen
ma took the train every morning
sunrise
from phan thiet to saigon
she arrived
carrying food to sell at the markets
past sunset
late every evening she carried her empty baskets
home
on the train which runs in the opposite direction
away from the capital
toward the still waters of the south china sea
once ba bought an inflatable raft
yellow and black
he pushed it out into a restricted part of water
in southern california
after midnight
to catch fish in the dark
it crashed against the rocks
he dragged it back to the van
small and wet
he drove us home
our backs turned in shame
from the pacific ocean
our lives have been marked by the tide
everyday it surges forward
hits the rocks
strokes the sand
turns back into itself again
a fisted hand
know this about us
we have lived our lives
on the edge of oceans
in anticipation of
sailing into the sunrise
i tell you all this
or tear apart the silence
of our days and nights here
i tell you all this
to fill a void of absence
in our history here
we are fragmented shards
blown here by a war no one wants to remember
in a foreign land
with an achingly familiar wound
our survival is dependent upon
never forgetting that vietnam is not
a word
a world
a love
a family
a fear
to bury
let people know
VIETNAM IS NOT A WAR
let people know
VIETNAM IS NOT A WAR
let people know
VIETNAM IS NOT A WAR
but a piece
of
us,
sister
and
we are
so much
more
==========================
Thanks for listening.
Chris Fox
<email>
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