shrapnel shards on blue water

[crankyturtle]

every day i beat a path to run to you
beaten into the melting snow/the telephone poles
which separate us like so many signals of slipping time
and signposts 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
towards the still waters of the south china sea

once ba bought an inflatable raft
yellow and black
he pushed it out onto a restricted part of the 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
to tear apart the silence
of our days and night here

i tell you all this
to fill the 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

but a piece
of
us,
sister
and
we are
so much

more

(le thi diem thuy)