DIARY NOTES: 26 MARCH 1968

Long Hai Hills South Vietnam


In A Company perimeter
with Hori Howard
his 28-year old face
that of an older man.
Smashed trees
split boulders
a moonscape
air fire-hot
acridity of TNT pervades,
vista a steal
from a tourist brochure
across paddy and sand dune
to the South China Sea.

He silences me
points to a fissure
in the rocks below us
where a wisp of smoke
coils upward:
the VC is cooking
or having a cigarette.
Life goes on above
and under ground.


To Fly Again, 2001

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