He says that in his roots,
his grandfather told him:
pride was sky head high.
Soaring upon elevated clouds,
accentuated white – blue skies.
Never to leave time out in the sun to dry.
In the strings of our kite,
you’re starting to cut the strings to the memories,
and while speaking to each other in blank hands gestures,
glaring eyes: “Don’t let go.”
The wind tastes of empty jars
blurry rings of tree trunks,
meaningless life left behind –
meaning gave up hope,
tying hope to your heart strings so we’d laugh –
in pride and play, willing to free your hand to hold mine.
It’s been more than sixty days,
foolishly, by sixty nights outstretched,
Language bonded whispered in the wind,
we should never be left with blistering knuckles hanging onto the strands,
distinguishing old men to my father,
his grays dripping from the eaves,
then promise not to stay, too afraid so you call it sacrifice:
No war for a boy turned man.
Sixteen bordering Eighteen to be drafted,
swallowing blood.
You tell to me from your roots,
“It’s okay, if we don’t know what we’re doing.”
You love everybody too hard – too easily,
so even if you pretend – each dead body changes you,
apologizing endlessly – it becomes a habit.
Be judgmental to yourself, better safe than sorry.
but forgiving to others – always – in guerrilla warfare.
You remember their names – all of them.
All of those love letters –
You were talking about them,
describing what their hands looked like.
Good men with guns.
Good men, and bad men: the same.
You shot them, and the bad men stopped showing up in my dreams.
You shot them, and the bad men never stopped to show up in your dreams
In shame.
You never had thought to be fighting for your life again after Vietnam,
Your grays made history, realize that your own company counts too.
No war for a man turned boy.
Covered in the debris of war,
my father tells me your heart beat is slowly safe.
For you, the honey hasn’t been sweet for years,
your teeth rotting to gravel enamel.
They changed you, your black hair to gray.
My mother doesn’t know that half of it, she doesn’t believe it.
Tell me, that’s why she says you turned your back,
I’ll understand, but you say,
“She doesn’t want to believe that all we’ve buried was found.”
It’s okay, we are all trying to forget the ones we lost.
You’ve been renting out your body for whiles now,
And it’s still not home, now that you’ve escaped, forfeited, you’ve lost.
Your roots are the making of your growth,
the world counting its patience peace,
elderly quickly, at your bones;
stiff and brittle: eroding like stone, bleeding, drying blood
defining bravery as my shoulders shrug, throats burning:
No war for a man turned hero.
You’re going to bite your tongue while reading this,
I won’t let you swallow the blood this time.
Be a boy turned man turned my father’s father turned my grandfather.
I see your eyes when I look into the mirror –Damn it.
You admit you won’t be home – you’ve won –
no hands can hurt you now, save you now.
The memories are running gray, and the colors are disappearing slowly and all at once.
No war for the man turned gray.
From the clouds,
guided by the whispering wind,
I entered and have spotted land.
I confessed that,
“I do not know what I’m doing.”
You’re not here to save me – this time.
I am saved,
it is by my own weak hands –
debris under my fingertips –
twenty taking off four, as sixteen –
lie to protect the soul of a grandfather’s tragedy.
Now my hair turning gray,
No war for the roots faded gray.
No war for the roots faded away.
– Emilyn Nguyen, Grandfather’s Grays
↠ Emilyn's Journey ↞ 