Dear Carla
Twice I read Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram
Because of your enthusiastic recommendation
I was captivated
I was crestfallen
Thuy’s diary revealed her commitment
Comparable to that of Lan
The ardent Buddhist social worker whom I had read before
And assigned in my classes
But Thuy was overtly political
An unabashed Communist
Lan was committed to the Noble Eightfold Path
Which included Right Speech
Even when she’d been arrested in Saigon
She spoke sparingly and respectfully
To her captors whom she could see
Were like so may of her cousins and brothers
Reading Thuy’s diary as a U.S. citizen
Was a demanding spiritual experience
Turning page after page learning of her ardent hopes
For her country, her beloved and herself
Even as she knew how the U.S. troops
Went about their work in her country
She describes them akin to “bloodthirsty devils
stealthily sinking their fangs into our bodies”
And “I can only repeat our unchanging Vietnamese conviction:
‘There is no other way than to fight
Until not one imperialist American remains in our country
Only then can we have happiness’”
Perry
–from novel-in process, Our Heroic and Ceaseless 24/7 Struggle against Tsuris
