Rocky's Birthday Thoughts

I had a fantastic birthday in Viet Nam and a good friend of mine wanted me to share some thoughts on this day.  My father fought in Viet Nam in 1968-1969.  As a result of being shot up he had to have a leg amputated and led a life full of physical and mental pain from the shrapnel in his body, PTSD and exposure to Agent Orange.  Yet he was also a man of great love and compassion, passing away from several heart attacks and strokes when I was 16. Below is a poem on my birthday reflections in Dong Ha.

I just finished being hai muoi lam

People ask me why I go back to Viet Nam

For me the personal has always been political

Not an abstract philosophical elliptical

No matter how many socks used or applied baby powder

With each step the pain always got louder

Prosthetic limps can't hide the limp

Never called him a wimp

Even as phantom pains struck like lightning

Hitting each piece of shrapnel is frightening

He used to say "freedom has a price"

But they weren't there when he'd slip on the ice

Crack!

How many bones can you afford to lack?

Dioxin chemical nightmares

The government never paid that fare

They take the youth

Destroy and twist the truth

Other fathers and sons play ball & run

But taking care of strokes ain't no fun

So I jumped head first into the Mekong Delta

Trying to understand the hand that delt ya

At an early age I knew hell isn't a place underground far

And heaven isn't up next to a star

Simultaneously coexisting right here

Embracing the tension became clear

Constantly unveiling the layers

Figuring out the key players

"Let's move forward and be friends"

Is what I heard here...bends

Your heart and mind

Stripping the fruit from the vine

Let's learn and love one another...?

It wasn't just a voice from my own mother

But foreign young and old alike

Shattering every preconceived fright

So I come to search for the ghost of my old man

And tell him I have a new plan

Plant trees where bombs maimed

Where American and Vietnamese came

I come to leave a token

For the dead and living, smokin

An incense prayer

That before the dawn

We can unite and be strong

Reality is not a static fatality

Where we come from shifts

Tectonic plates can rift

When we shed the scales off our eyes

Slowly stripping down the lies I do apologize

I come in hope of a dream

That washes our blood & tears away in a Mississippi or a Red River Stream

Where tomorrow is brighter than yesterday's jelly napalm

Learning the rights from the wrongs

This is why I come back

So you and I won't lack

The necessary compassion needed to combat

Ignorance in all its shapes and sizes

Sharing with each other our greatest prizes.

Rocky Block