Ben Het at Dusk


It is still, now.


A breeze brings coolness as we stand
where soldiers once built sanctuaries of sandbags.
Clouds shadow the place where steel flew
and imagination tormented.


We look down at the expanse of green hiding old memories,
Covering the tortured earth, all except the airstrip's skeleton.
The red clay of the airstrip's ruins, long bare of its metal surface
glows brighter as the light fades.


Across the road and beyond the stream, mountains rise,
their tops hidden by clouds.
Those who walked among them are now memories,
ghosts who wait to be invoked,
recalled to life by us who once knew them.


They are gone now, all of them,
both to death and to life;
those in bunkers who faced the mountain,
and their enemies moving quietly through the forest.
Gone the fear, gone the misery, gone the pain.


In their place, settlers have built houses by the road.
Peace has come, and peace's possibilities.
As night falls, families share food in lighted rooms.


In nearby towns red posters celebrate victories and heroes.
The young hope they too may one day know such glory.


Jackson H. Day
Ben Het, Vietnam
June 4, 2004

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©2004 Jackson H. Day. All Rights Reserved.

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