Twenty years have passed, yet even now
The bumper sticker on the pick-up truck,
Gliding along Ala Moana Boulevard,
Announces this bright September day of 1988
That Jane Fonda is a traitor.

The previous month Veterans for some other Foreign Wars
Cheered for the candidate who cleverly stayed home:
And I shook with righteous fury.

Twenty years ago two friends went separate ways;
One flew jet fighters and the other flew to Canada,
Leaving behind a wound no amnesty can heal.

Now the lithe figure in black in his Asian fields,
Again follows his waterbuffalo through sunlit rice paddies.
No airstrike thunder mars the stillness.
But across the sea we live in fragments:
Volcanic passions that will not cool,
Leaving fragments in the land.

II

The psychologist wrote about a nightmare, years ago.
One where the sleeper lay, a victim tied to the track,
while the thundering engine hurtled on, until she started in a sweat.
He wrote about Gestalt, of making whole.
"Own it all, each fragment is you.
Be the victim. Be the track.
Be the rope that holds you back
Be the thunder, be the fear
Be the engine roaring near
Reclaim the pieces, all must be:
Own them wholly, and be free."

III

A helicopter clatters over the beach
Over the soft waves, the warm sand, the bronzed bodies
Conjuring a moment's breathcatching moment from the past
Flying above a jungled hilltop
Bringing red mail bags and hot food
and a chance to fly away.

Then it banks and wheels like a seagull, and moves on.
Down by the water, the young girl in pink adjusts her bra.

Since it ended, we don't kill any more
We just keep on making each other dead
With our righteousness.
How can I live without being right?
How can I accept you without making myself wrong?
I have no space for you
I have no place for you
I am too right for you
And you for me.

Do not accuse me with your accusations:
"You fought the wrong war, you fought the wrong side,
You fought too hard, or not hard enough,
You killed the wrong people, or too few."

Do not kill me with your fine words
and intolerant bumper stickers.

Do not kill me with your righteous flags and prayers.
Do not invoke my own killing righteousness
with your smug hypocrisies.
Stop the war of fragments hurting in the land.

IV

It is time to climb the volcano,
Time to face the truth that burns within:
What we hate, we fear within ourselves--
Our righteousness preserving fragments of the soul
Time to own the fragments that we are, and be whole.

Be the coward, be the brave,
Be the one who came to save;
Be the killer, be the killed,
Be the crimson blood we spilled.
Be the marchers by the road,
Be the words that used to goad;
Leave the righteousness behind:
Create new possibilities of mind.
Reclaim the pieces, all are we:
Own them wholly, and be free.