Things We Still Carry
“To carry something is to hump it.”
In the sagging hot days of early April,
the young men travel past endless grassy fields
alongside the backdrop of yellow butterflies
and mountain silhouettes.
Half-baked from the mission of war,
they focus on the moment to moment
tasks; the preparation of
packing and unpacking
of things to carry.
The mundane calculations maintain
order and sanity, counting the raw materials:
maps, M-79 grenade launchers, 5.9 pounds unloaded,
the New Testament, slingshots,
earplugs, flak jacket and helmets,
M-14s, M-16s,
all types of standard weapons and explosives;
whatever is appropriate as a means of killing or survival.
One Lieutenant carried letters and a good luck charm
from a much younger woman who is not his lover.
He carried with him the separate-but-together
romance that keeps him humping.
They hump along the trails of Than Khe in ‘75
carrying pentrite high explosives, wiring, and detonators.
Burning animals.
Burning villages.
All that remain are vaporous shadows,
ashen-powdering ghosts,
a collection of colorless casts of humanity long gone.
On their return, the young weary soldiers carry with them
the wetlands of Saigon; dragging the muck
stuck to them still, ankle-deep, moving
like drug mules, never at a loss for
things to carry.
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