Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
In a Garbage Can in DaNang, There Lived a Hobbit
“Take up and read!”
-St. Augustine of North Africa, Chapter XII, Confessions
Quonset huts in rows across the dunes
Smelling of diesel: hot white sands, hot white air
Bulldozers clanking along barbed-wire fencing
Dragonish coils against desperate scrub
ARVN guards in mirror-lensed gas-station shades
In watchtowers writhing in the summer sun
Scanning the huts, each its own tiger cage
Sandbags, heat and sand, metal bunks, heat, sand
A lidless garbage can of civilization’s leavings
And atop some rags and soda cans a book
I stopped. I looked. I took. I read:
“…one morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green…”
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