After all these years

still there

pulsing current

yet slow

yet urgent

a bass line of sadness

running through our lives

the echo of a convulsion

the sting of the wound

only comes after you see it

on television.

They were fighting over a gun

in a hotel kitchen

they were pointing to the horizon

from a motel balcony

while their friends lie wounded

beneath them.

They were running through the streets

beating their neighbors’ long-haired kids.

They were sleeping among the long wet ferns

when mortar fire awoke them.

The afterbirth of a movement

is often unpleasant

the anti-war movement in October

Nixon in November.

The Soviets must have been amused

at the level of passion

in our struggles

to abate their crumbling empire

but who knew back then

what the universe really looked like

inner turmoil was all we could see

in our cities, in our living rooms

in ourselves

made all the world

look just just like Khe Sanh in June.

 

–Danny Grosso