FLYING OVER VIETNAM

Where are the craters, scorches, gashes and rips that I remember?
Have the reminders of our presence been so thoroughly eradicated,
new growth fertilized by the blood of a million?
Half a world away,
there will be no such scarsin the soft shifting Arabian deserts,
not even for a time,
just the ghosts of another hazy cause.
Our reminders will be still further away,
here at home,
faded wooden crosses,
green weathered bronze,
andwind shallowed stone,
names whose faces will be forgottenwith time.

©Copyright 2005 by Bob Flournoy