Connections: Vermont Vietnam (II)
The general came to the President
We are the laughingstock of the world
What world? he said
the world
the world
Vermont
the green world
the green mountain
Across the valley
someone is clearing a field
he is making a tan rectangle
he has cut a tan rectangle on Lyme Hill
the dark wood
the deposed farm
the mist is sipped up by the sun
the mist is eaten by the sun
What world? he said
What mountain? said the twenty ships of the Seventh Fleet
rolling on the warm waves lobbing shells all the summer day
into green distance
on Trung Son mountain Phan Su told a joke:
The mountain is torn, the trees are broken
how easy it is to gather wood
to repair my house in the village which is broken by bombs
His shirt is plum-colored, is brown like dark plums
the sails on the sampans that fish in the sea of the Seventh Fleet
are plum-colored
the holes in the mountain are red
the earth of that province is red red
world