Vietnam Peace

I was a teen when first I came
To fight the war in Vietnam.
Far away were home and friends,
But here the bullet and the bomb.

One thing's sure, a boy I came
To this tormented distant land,
But when my time at last arrived
I came home not a boy, but man.

So Vietnam was more than just
Some foreign country torn in strife,
It was as well, my  great divide,
The nexus that defined my life.

I think sometimes two Vietnams
In my thoughts are intertwined,
One of war and cruel death,
And one of people brave and kind.

It's people took me in, you know,
This ugly duckling child of clay.
They spoke to me of ancestors,
And how to find the middle way.

How the lotus grows from mud,
How the soul can be appeased,
How to balance deed and thought,
And how the spirits can be pleased.

I learned as well it's history,
Confucian universities,
A thousand years of endless war,
Of emperors and colonies.

I saw it's natural terrain,
Woods of tamarind and of fir,
Great rivers flowing to the sea,
The misted hills, the sandy shore.

And understood at last just how
Two Vietnams are juxtaposed,
The smell of diesel fumes and death
By lemongrass and spice opposed.

The ripples made by skipping stones
As they bounce across the summer ponds,
The shockwaves ripping through the air
From thousand pound exploding bombs.

The images burned in my mind
Of this place in it's darker day,
Are balanced by the chanting monks
And children laughing as they play.

It takes, it seems, a lot of time
To give those darker thoughts release,
And find in Vietnam and me
A place of rest, a time of peace.