Postcards From Cambodia

Abe Lincoln once turned to somebody and said,
"Do you ever find yourself talking with the dead?"

There are three tiny deaths heads carved out of mammoth tusk
on the ledge in my bathroom
They grin at me in the morning when I'm taking a leak, but they say very little

Outside Phnom Penh there's a tower, glass paneled, maybe ten meters high
Filled with skulls from the killing fields
Most of them lack the lower jaw, so they don't exactly grin but they whisper, as if from a great distance, of pain, and of pain left far behind

Eighteen thousand empty eyeholes peering out at the four directions

Electric fly buzz, green moist breeze
Bone-colored Brahma bull grazes wet-eyed, hobbled in hollow of mass grave
In the neighboring field a small herd of young boys plays soccer,
their laughter swallowed in expanding silence

This is too big for anger, it's too big for blame
We stumble through history so humanly lame
So I bow down my head
Say a prayer for us all
That we don't fear the spirit when it comes to call

The sun will soon slide down into the far end of the ancient reservoir.
Orange ball merging with its water-borne twin below air-brushed edges of cloud
But first, it spreads itself, a golden scrim behind fractal sweep of swooping fly catchers
Silhouetted dark green trees, blue horizon

The rains are late this year
The sky has no more tears to shed
But from the air Cambodia remains a disc of wet green, bordered by bright haze
Water-filled bomb craters, sun streaked gleam stitched in strings across patchwork land and march west toward the far hills of Thailand
Macro analog of Angkor Wat's temple walls
intricate bas-relief of thousand-year-old battles pitted with AK rounds

And under the sign of the seven headed cobra, the Naga who sees in all directions seven million landmines lie in terraced grass, in paddy, in bush
Call it a minescape now

Sally holds the beggar's hand and cries at his scarred up face and absent eyes and right leg gone from above the knee

Tears spot the dust on the worn stone causeway whose sculpted guardians row on row
Half frown, half smile,
Mysterious
Mute

And this is too big for anger
It's too big for blame
We stumble through history so humanly lame
So I bow down my head, say a prayer for us all
That we don't fear the spirit when it comes to call

This is too big for anger
It's too big for blame
We stumble through history so humanly lame
So I bow down my head, say a prayer for us all
That we don't fear the spirit when it comes to call