though they are whispering,
and my hearing muted by the years
and the cluttered clang of today,
their voices sift softly through the trees,
a ghost chorus, chanting
late songs from the killing grounds,
wafting warily around the trunks
on the backs of bent breezes
their names come like seeds
in the hopeful spring rains
as if they yearn to be born again
but the earth does not bring forth
their lost and longing faces
new names take their places
not in the choking jungle canopies
among the rubber trees, the bamboo,
the Mekong’s murky, mournful flow
where I last heard their plaintive pleas
drowned by the roar of chopper blades,
and my own metal screaming
but now in the desert, under
the Tigris’ and Euphrates’
unforgiving suns
still, I hear them, a labored litany
through the trees
yet asking to return
to sit with me, as the sun sets
white, on my gray eyes
and new voices silence
their wraithlike song