A Right Turn in Viet-Nam - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Right Turn in Viet-Nam

 

 

And whether we shall meet again, I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take.
Forever and forever farewell…
If we do meet again, why we shall smile;
If not, why then this parting was well made.

 

Julius Caesar V.i.125-129

 

 

This is not a metaphor for anything

Only a memory of driving an ambulance

A clapped-out relic of the Second World War

On a street on the Tien Sha Peninsula

 

1969

 

For a left turn the driver extends his left hand

And waves

It’s okay to wave back, but that’s not the point

For a right turn the driver extends his right hand

And waves

It’s okay to wave back, but that’s not the point

If there’s a passenger, he extends his right hand

And waves

It’s okay to wave back, but that’s not the point

If there are two passengers, the one most to the right…

But you get the point

It’s okay to wave back – that’s the point

 

A Dodge ambulance, a Vietnamese Army Jeep, and a Renault

Meet at an intersection – and somehow miss each other

 

And I miss Viet-Nam.

                                                 If we do meet again…