Amelia in Vietnam
For Amelia Haselkorn
Vietnam, Spring 2008
I. Sapa Journeys
1
You walked in the rice terraces:
so beautiful. A few silent ducks.
A clamor of piglets.
Roosters and cicadas wakened the day.
A grandma stripped bark from a stick.
So peaceful.
Later, you hiked to the waterfall.
* *
You hammered rocks into fragments
for a Zay family’s roof. With teachers
and friends, you chopped firewood,
filled in a ditch, and turned the soil.
Then you swam in the river.
Next morning, you devoured breakfast:
rice flour crepes with bananas, honey,
lime juice. Too soon, you would trek
to the road and the way back.
You kept thinking this might be heaven.
2
You were in Sapa: your village
was Ta Van and you were there
for two nights.
The second day was best: you helped
build a house and bent low in the rice
paddies: it was hard work hoeing the mud,
and when you slipped into the river,
you were tugged under and pulled into rocks.
Cuts and bruises rippled over your body.
Luckily, you survived. How else
would you have enjoyed banana crepes
the next morning?
Only chocolate at the French bakery
tasted sweeter.
3
You stayed with a Red Dao family —
Mrs. Phan Man May. Her wood-slat house
had a corrugated roof and pit toilets
but also herbal baths, and the rice paddies’
dark warm mud sucked at your toes.
_____________
II. Hue, Hoi An, Hanoi
I
You are in Hue, Vietnam’s ancient city,
but have brought with you memories
of Hoi An: images and feelings so fresh
they will not stop whispering to you
or brushing against your face.
In Hoi An, you fished, farmed, cooked,
shopped, bought skirts and dresses,
wriggled your toes in wet sand.
At the cooking place, you were served
what you prepared but got sick anyway.
Maybe what made you feverish
was seeing a woman American soldiers
had tortured. Perhaps she was a carrier
of mortification and pain that could not
be softened, even in a beach town like Hoi An.
II
You are in Hue, and tonight
you will be taking a moonlight cruise
on a dragon boat on the Perfume River.
You will wear your new ao dai, which is blue
and golden. The girls who cut and sewed it
praised the whiteness of your skin.
They loved touching you and played
with your hair.
III
Yesterday, you went to the Cham ruins,
which had been bombed during the war
yet remains intact. You saw how beautiful
and complex it was — how majestic —
and realized you couldn’t encompass
all of its parts or comprehend what held
its many thousands of bricks together.
Perhaps it was the breath of an ancient god:
god of the burning green mountains, god
of its temples, pagodas, and mausoleums.
You liked best the burial chamber of a young king,
whose name was Khai Dinh — its extravagance
enraptured you.
IV
Today, you see the War Remnants Museum
and what you see disturbs you and makes
you sad. Yet you can’t grasp the anger
of that time or its pain and darkness, though
you do feel wounded.
At night, the shadows fade a little
and, like nearly everyone else who visits
this place, you feel tired and distracted.
Even the karaoke bar can’t help, even
the American Idol club can’t unconfuse you.
V
After your adventures in Sapa and Hue,
you take the night train to Hanoi.
On your first day back, you watch a water-
puppet show and sit through a lesson
in meditation given by a Buddhist monk —
perhaps a brother to the monks who publicly
burned themselves during the Vietnam War.
At night, you long to fall into your own bed again,
to sleep deeply, as a child sleeps, but shreds
of fear and delight trail after you as you sink
into thick mud and slick, angular rocks.
|
Magnolia
