"Christmas, 1967"
The sand bags look the same:
a dismal green-grey bag leaks red clay
upon the bags below. Outside the perimeter,
children pick though the garbage,
thrown out waste of a thousand men.
Christmas in Pleiku, 1967, war fills
the surrounding hills. Across the valley
we see cloud puffs of artillery and
at night red, green, amber flares dangle,
shining bright beneath white parachutes:
displays in sound and light
rivaling the staged events of a thousand
towns across the "world" on New Year's Day.
But this is Christmas: a time of truce.
H. Palmer Hall
Posted over on Palmer's Poems
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