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We Did What We Could (poem)
By rg cantalupo
[Printer-Friendly Version] We fired on the trees
because their shadows
looked like men.
We torched the hootches
because we saw rifles
entering or leaving
doorways in the dark.
We strung wire around
a rice paddy and called it ours
for a day. We did what
we could, what we were
ordered to do. We didn't
like it. We didn't think it was
right or good. But we did it—
what else was there to do?
Some stayed in the valley,
some on the mountain
with no name, some in
the Ho Bo Woods, some in
the jungle in Cambodia. Some
died later of internal wounds.
And some are still out there
on a street some where.
Each of us left something
we loved behind—a girl,
an unsent letter, a luckless
Saint Christopher, a purple
heart, a friend. We did what
we could, what was asked
of us. It wasn't enough.
Not for us. Not for our time.
Not enough to keep the dead
from rising with their fists
full of weeds, nor enough to stop
the living from cradling them
in their nights of terror.
—rg cantalupo
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