i used to/believe/ history as truth/ a sin an indellible mark/ a victory a song/passed through generations/i did not know/ history is capable/ of forgetting/ lives reduced to less than/ an ink blot/ like the women/the men/the children/who set sail for hope/ in the invitation/ of death/ history an ocean/ that swallowed them all/ their cries sank/ to the bottom of/ the sea, silenced/ like lives reduced to/ a blank page/ history erased to/ nothingness/ the công binh left his home/ for his (colonial) motherland/ searching for a new life/ in the mouth of hell/only to return to/ shattered homes/ bruised gazes/ forgotten deaths/ like lives reduced to/ torn pages/ a soldier picked up his gun/ who knows his death/ would smoulder into/ moldy graves his/ bones turned soil/ his/ blood seeped into water/of/ the country/ turned its back/on him/ what is more scary/ to die/ or to be forgotten? Tran Thi Bao TranThis poem is dedicated to lives often unacknowledged in any country's history, lives that question the necessity of a nation, lives that deserve to be remembered.
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war noun, never-a-period, always destructive 1 a (1) : a state of learning to trust the possibility of death more than your life a mother changed his son’s birth year, expecting if the war continued for 20 more years, her son could delay the possibility of death a grandaunt picked a twin to escape by boat, expecting if he died, their mother would still have the other twin (2) : a period of embodied trauma. a period that never ends. a period that transcends generations generations generations b : the art or science of death my uncle, 28, unwillingly drafted, was using the restroom when a bomb exploded. right where he stood fatherhood burnt. like ashes. his children, my cousins one was a newborn one was barely one they did not know how to hold their father’s ashes. "when you are enlisted into the jungle you don't care about how to live you care only about how to die."(*) In 1968, thousands of Vietnamese killed thousands of Vietnamese In 1972, thousands of Vietnamese killed thousands of Vietnamese deaths stacked, buried, unnamed, forgotten what is a nation but a line drawn by war? 2 a : a state of loss grief loss grief loss grief b : a struggle between opposing forces a country cut half a family cut half a body cut half blood dyed a river blood dyed a village blood dyed a nation c : a period that never ends Tran Thi Bao TranThis poem is inspired from all the heart-wrenching stories I have heard from the pilgrimage. Stories that pushed me to contemplate on the value of life/death and the intergenerational impact of war. The poem is my appreciation to Mr. Home Nguyen, Mr. Nguyen Dac Xuan, my cousin Anh Ngoc for their courageous sharing. (*) this quote is from our session with Mr. Nguyen Dac Xuan
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