PLAIN OF JAARS

		with thanks to Andre Vltchek


Consider this carefully.
A TNT blanket over a whole country,
more than the US dropped on Japan and Germany.
The pock-marked face of the Plain of Jars,
the land broken open and spilled out with unhealing sores.
Ten tons of explosives for every square kilometer
in constant bombardment from '65 to '73,
equal to five million pounds of death spread over Amarillo Texas.
Laos crisscrossed with the vapor trails
of headless cows, fingerless farmers,
legless water carriers, lifeless children.
A dirty, secret war waged on a place most
couldn't find on a map or even bother to look.


Three boys play behind the house with a new toy,
a present from Uncle Lyndon or Uncle Dick,
specially wrapped by Uncle Bob or Uncle Henry,
specially delivered by the heroic followers of orders
from so, so high that the people, looking up from the paddies
barely see them. And all the brave warriors see
is the land below all green, and a red flower that blooms.
Or they leave a seed of terror planted in the earth, to germinate
beneath the feet of a farmer, to blossom
in the soft body of a child, to redden the air at last
after all these years of dark waiting.

Consider, carefully, how the names change.
Ban Kai to Haditha.
Ban Tajock to Mahmudiya.
Tham Piu to Fallujah.
The Plain of Jars to the Land Between Rivers.
But arrogance doesn't change.
Sanitized brutality doesn't change.
Passivity before evil or the numb ignorance of comfort or the screaming
	lies and denials of silence do not change.
And still the same -
three little boys with a rusty new toy,
chattering like monkeys in the moment
before the world around them
blooms red and silent.



© 2006 by Richard W. Todd

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