龙宿 The Dragon's Mansion.

Here, it is a little time since I added something, and this is a thought about growing and revisiting the places of Childhood.

The picture (of a gannet, or albatross, I am not sure), reminds me of ridong the wheelchair.

Walking in the old 'Hood.

Today i walked in the park
just a lark, I strolled past old places
remembering faces and dreams
— my childish schemes
seem petty now, but how
deeply then we lived desire
longings were fire in the heart
back at the start — of our dramas.

Rolling on nostalgic streets
watching magic fleets of memory go by
thinking of the times we tried to fly
away in rhymes and wordy dreams
past school times and first chances
breaks as soft as memory seems
to rosy ages all enhanced...

Today i thought
of the confined designs
our parent's taught
— loving rhymes and moral stories
troubles made for younger worries
for times of writing lines
upon our souls
and so like moles
mama hides in the middle caves
of the raves and rants we think
belong to us alone, Oh No, not so
we turn the page and rage
and later in our age, we drink.

Here, for your reading pleasure. If you have something to say about this story, please leave a comment.

THE MEDIC

The medic stood alone in the center of a small landing strip in the midst of a jungle that looked no different to him from any other jungle terrain which he had seen. The highest trees were very thin, stuck above the explosion of green growth like so many stick men with great, leafy, umbrellas. The shorter trees no longer amazed him with their number and their thickness, and the vines and creepers at ground level were simply one more obstacle to his movement. A few weeks before this, he had felt a sense of wonder at the sight of this jungle, but those feelings had gone, dying like the songs of the birds just prior to a firefight. He had already sworn he' d been in this jungle for half an eternity, and thought he had been in hundreds of clearings like this one, but he really had seen fewer than a dozen, having been in this green, third world, and forsaken jungle country no more than a few months.

The medic had come to these small clearings with the Dust-Off choppers to retrieve wounded, and he had also flown or walked into them with the infantry grunts, before they had gotten wounded. He had seen friends and acquaintances and unknown men both wounded and dead in this jungle, and he also helped save the lives of other friends, and of other unknown men.

The medic stood alone now, waiting for yet another Dust-Off. Although he really was not conscious of it he hated his work, hated the green jungle which clouded his vision, and the red mud which ate at his boots and rotted his feet.

He even hated the people for whom his own army was fighting, but most of all, he hated himself, his ability to recognize defeat.

In just a few months of living in the jungle-covered country, he came to understand the futility of his Army's endeavors, and the limits of his activity within that Army. He knew that he must go on being a medic, until he was badly wounded or killed outright. He felt the depths of his own fear and terror, and knew how that was a small thing compared to the fears of young boys hurt and dying half a world away from their homes. Whenever he heard the cry of Medic, he felt his soul turn all his brave feelings to ice-cold dread. He also knew there was nothing he could do about the military situation, and that he must respond to the human cries, whenever they came.

These thoughts did not bother the medic often, and, if asked, he could not have articulated them. He could never articulate the rage and pain he felt when wounded men didn't recover, or the feelings of satisfaction he grew to enjoy, when he knew he had killed some of the faceless enemy.
The medic had plenty of opportunity to kill. Combat circumstances were such that he could not always help with the wounded, and he soon found it better to help with the fighting than to be idle and frustrated. Because he learned this well, he earned recognition as a killer medic, a term both affectionate and endearing when used by the grunts A killer was a valuable asset to an infantry squad, and a killer medic was, if not a rarity, at least a welcome addition.

Standing in this particular clearing, the medic was not especially conscious of being a killer, or of his feelings of hatred and useless endeavor. He was very conscious of other feelings. He knew it was not good to have close friends, because he might have to watch them suffer or die. He also knew he needed someone to talk with, someone to confide in, and that this was a necessary part of life. He understood how the infantry respected him, and he enjoyed that respect. He liked and even craved the camaraderie of combat soldiers; they understood his desire for distance and also his need to belong. He reveled in being treated as both a killer and a healer at the same time, feeling rather comfortable in the company of both the educated doctors at the MASH Units, and the proud, efficient killers in the infantry.

He would have laughed at the suggestion that these were morally exclusive worlds, and once, while speaking with the Chaplain, he had pointed at the jungle and claimed that out there was the only God around, that the jungle was the only judge which anyone here needed. He was needed in both worlds and if neither satisfied him, the two together made his time endurable.

His ability not to think of these contradictions made his time in that country more endurable, and allowed him not to worry over questions he could not answer. Standing in the center of the clearing, he waited for the sound of a chopper and kept his mind on more immediate worries. He thought constantly of the wounded men lying at one end of it, and he had a quick, idle thought of the men who had died on this patrol. He wondered about the faceless enemy, and where they had gone, and hoped his capable squad were watching for any signs of a renewed attack. He thought he liked the color blue rather than green, and it occurred to him a light blue jungle might be less menacing than this oppressive green. His mind flashed, for just a moment, on the Captain who was covering his actions, and on the sergeant who had called him suicidal for standing upright in the center of the clearing to call the helicopter. He thought briefly of some way to show the sergeant he was not suicidal, and then wondered whether it really mattered.

These were only quick thoughts, though, and they were gone as quickly as the little monkeys who ran from the noisy firefights. As a medic, he could not explain why he must be there to ensure that the Dust-Off would find them, just as he could not explain his trust in the ability of the squad to protect him. He could never tell the sergeant of his obligations or his self-confidence, when he was doing his job as a medic. He felt that, if attacked, he would survive long enough to evacuate the wounded safely, and if others questioned his sanity on this point, they didn‘t stop his activity.

Standing in the middle of that clearing, the medic finally heard the sounds of the chopper as it rose over a nearby hill. He swung his arm down in a signal to the men, who would pop smoke grenades and prepare for evacuation quickly. He smiled to himself and lit a cigarette, still keeping his rifle at the ready. He felt assured of another successful day as a respected killer and damned fine medic, a necessary adjunct to the war-scarred infantry.

He still did not think of the moral contradictions, or of the futility of seeing the whole war as a sort of window dressing, with no purpose behind it. After returning home he would have more than ten years to think of these things; ten years of trying to understand.

More than ten years later, he would be standing in another clearing, trying desperately to remember what it was he had meant to tell the sergeant about not being suicidal.

Waiting to finish a few more spice poems (can anyone tell me what Vietnamese Hot Spice, or Vietnamese Hot mint spice, is and how to make it?).

While I am working on those, I will share with you a poem I first wrote when I traveled to Vietnam for the first time. It is about destiny.

NHERITANCE

I was not the youngest of my brothers,
was not the elder of my sisters.
I was but the third child,
and when something hurt, I cried.

Before my birth my parents
living in a rural house and small;
spent the evenings quiet and together.

Close by that house a forest grew
and in the quiet nights my mother
often heard the sound of axes biting wood.

My father never heard the woodsmen,
although he listened patiently
during those nights
until the warm and silent evening
just before the morning of my birth.

He did not hear the sound of axes
chopping wood, He heard the noise of bullets
ripping the peaceful air
of my first night on earth.

The ghostly sounds were men
testing machine guns
at a nearby factory.

My mother in her innocence
had never heard machine guns.

Twenty years later
when I first heard machine guns
tearing holes in the fabric of night
I would run to hide my head,
Afraid ...
Afraid that the sound which brought me,
was back to usher me out.

Here I have tried my shaking hands at a translation, my first that I trust so far. I translated the poem, not the individual words or the Daoist, Buddhist, Confucianist allusions, which do not fit into English poetry. I kept a little rhythm, and the rhymes because the original does, and left the speaking voices ambiguous. Please let me know what you think.

王维. - 杂诗三首 - 赏析

Wang Wei: Three poems together; an appreciation.

一

家住孟津河，门对孟津口。
常有江南船，寄书家中否?

One:

On the side of the wide river along a road
Up from the nearby wharf our home awaits.
On water from southern cities many boats
ply the daily mail: to all but our own gates?

二

君自故乡来，应知故乡事。
来日绮窗前[2]，寒梅著花未?

Two:

Kind Sir, from my home town you've come
Our news, you ought to know, please tell
Of the winter plums planted by the window
When leaving, did you see them budding well?

三

已见寒梅发，复闻啼鸟声。
愁心视春草，畏向玉阶生。

Three:

In cool air the plums have blossomed once again
In songs of spring the young birds start to coo
Our grass grows deep and greener, my heart fears
These plants may cross our threshold before you.

As an idea for a poem (inscape, imagist, and sensuous), I think writing a series of couplets or verse (triplets at the most) about Spices would be interesting.

My brothers and I were talking about spices and cooking, and i got to thinking. My first shot was to think:

tarragon - for making bearnaise and tartare
from french, le dragon herb lives ever in wine
to spice our soups, just in time.

Or something, that's just a quick idea. (Besides, i know that tarragon is from the French for Dragon), he he!

Now for the help. I'd like to write many of these, and want everyone to leave a quick comment saying which herb you want immortalized.

Please name any, and before the spring planting time (or, for oz and you tropical folks, pretty soon), I will compose a set of verses about spices, their uses, word history, flavors, particular foods and just a few more ideas.

Please help! Comment and tell me an herb you love, a spice you sigh about, a flavoring you cannot live without!

Thanks ever so much, then!