Wartime during Life/3
We Expect the Germans To know their own historyTo tell the truth about their warTo refuse rationalizations and excusesTo act responsibly here and nowHowever many decadesAgo that was The world expects the AmericansTo know their…
Category: Vietnam
Compañeras
I needed to find other women who knew what I knew, and more. I needed to talk to women who had seen unspeakable things, who were without self-pity, who had faced the liars and lunatics,…
Wartime during Life/2
November 12, 2007. Smithfield, NC. After Reading Levertov’s Poem on the 1972 Christmas Bombing for Andrew Wimmer and Suzanne Renard Haven’t you had a similar fantasySure, a different decadeA different civilization now being destroyedDifferent…
Mentshes/3
What You Understand Depends on Where You Stand For Brent Fernandez and Brett Schrewe Night Flight to Hanoi is an account of Jesuit Daniel Berrigan’s odyssey in late January and early February 1968, when…
Remembrancers
Just Another Night at Café Illumination After the talk on Operation Cast LeadCarla Nguyen and I headed over to Café IlluminationWhere we began processing what we heard We sat outside as it was a balmy…
Sangha/1
With the Sangha I meditate to decelerate my rampaging mindI meditate to focus on clear image of you smiling in TahoeI meditate on words of Hanshan and Wang Yang-ming I meditate to be able to…
From Ho Xuan Huong Street to Ho Chi Minh City
Wilfred Burchett, Catapult to Freedom Nothing is more Precious than Independence and Freedom. Ho Chi Minh, 118 Ho: We will build our country ten times more beautiful. Ho Chi Minh, 199 Once again, Australian…
Reshma/1
Dearest Thuy by Reshma Rao I gave Reshma a book by a Vietnamese doctor, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram. After she read it, she sent me the following…
Travelers
Wishing You an Un-Great Experience Now that you’re headed to _________ And people are wishing that you’ll have a “great” experience I hope you have a un-“great” experience If “great” means photo-ops Looking good with…
Making the Best of Tough Situations
Three summers ago, some friends came to our Chouteau home for two months of Wednesday evenings to reflect on Thich Nhat Hanh’s autobiography, At Home in the World. Just today a chapter from that book…