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The Way It Is

image of Kim Phuc was taken by Nick Ut (c) 1972 all rights reserved. It won the Pulitzer Prize




Yours was the voice of reason,
this round sound,
baritone
modulated and comforting
authoritative
familiar.
The promise made was order,
justice
the rule of conscience.
The rule of law.

I was a girl-child,
watching a screen from the corner of her eye,
sitting on the rag-rug,
this blue woollen stain
on the floor
not thinking of the world.
Your voice awoke me
nightly,
baptising me
with images
of women crying,
girls like me with faces
twisted,
grieving,
bleeding red
soldiers round them
guns and green
a man on fire
atrocities
someplace called My Lai
the Tet Offensive
chaos and defeat,
blasted cities
firestorm
fiendish invention
the monstrous machinery of war.

These shocking truths
these crumbling
bankrupt ideas
they thought
I was too young to understand.
My Dad would say
the Communists had come
they'd overrun,
and damn this
Communisic
Broadcasting
System.

But I
couldn't help notice
the numbers
of the dying
Communists or not
how they were mounting,
mounting...
and, deep inside, I knew:
something was wrong
all the people
the far-away
were perishing in flame
and it was wrong.

And I would load my horses
into the little trailer that said Carnation;
I'd make order round the barn of tin
bright red, and green and gold,
fenced round with lincoln logs
and speak to the plastic milk-cows
and the chickens and ducks
holding up the brown donkey
with his black mane and tail,
for he was the leader.

You must not forget, he'd say.
Never forget.
That's the way it is.
The way it is.


Author notes

The image of Kim Phuc after a nalpalm attack that was taken by Nick Ut (c) 1972 all rights reserved. It won the Pulitzer Prize and probably shortened the war in Vietnam.

A contest entry

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Comments


  • Gagiikwe
    August 1
    Edit | Reply

    Congratulations RA

    • Riveralex
      August 4
      Edit | Reply

      Thanks, my friend,

      I see I just pipped you at the post. The standard was very high and I was delighted to be part of it. Thanks for the heads-up.
      xa

  • ea silver member
    July 23

    Edit | Reply
    The numbers thing was very disturbing to grow up with as
    "girls like me with faces
    twisted,
    grieving,
    bleeding..." (black and white)
    I remember these tallies and being terrible upset by them, praying for the war to end and fearing a bad (personal) demise. I remember seeing this terrible image in LIFE magazine; maybe sometime after things had died down, I think at my aunt's house, who'd been a nurse there. I don't think I had as much sense of what was wrong or right as just wanting it all to stop and yes, go back to playing farm. Great details in the last two stanzas, very evocative. Good social commentary as seen through the eyes of a child with the talking animals.

    • Riveralex
      July 25
      Edit | Reply

      thanks, ea

      this contest was a great idea, it's really been revealing to read these pieces together - just as we watched together... separately. It's really striking, something to ponder. Best RA