Tuesday, March 31, 2009

News at Eleven: Everywhere we dug there were white bones.

. . . What kind of foundation would they make for our house?

My friends were perplexed. Were they our bones or their bones?
. . . The Americans left years ago and took their bones with them.

These skeletons, scattered all over our land,
Belong only to Vietnamese,
--"Quang Tri" in Mountain River: Vietnamese Poetry from the Wars 1948-1993.

There is no easy rebuilding after war. Literally or metaphorically, the survivors of the war are building upon the skeletons of the soldiers who fell while fighting for them.

from Crookston Daily Times: Poetry and the Vietnam War: The power of words to heal

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