“Four Short Months”
by Jennifer Richter

Tall as men in the Mekong
the eastern saurus crane
lifted its long-necked cry
above the miles of mud
and river and died out
when gunfire shouted back.
By the time I went
the country was quiet
and I walked past piles
of bullet-pocked rubble.
I did not yet have
a child inside, and I walked
past Vietnam’s broken cities
to the beach and its radiant waves
that had washed the war away.

Now that I have in me
my boy, I’m thinking again
of the wreck. In Hue
I walked through walls that gaped
with tank-shaped holes.
He is only strong enough
to flutter inside me, fly a little
as he floats though in four
short months my body
won’t be enough to keep
my son alive. When I walk,
my rocking soothes him
to sleep. When I am still,
he wakes in me, the wings
return like flocks of
miraculous cranes.
My son can hear me
when I sing so I sing
loudly, for us both, of the cranes
glided back into peace
on their black flight feathers,
their blood-red heads the only
wound that stalks the shallows.
My son can also hear
me when I cry. History,
grow wings and pass him by.

Taken from:
Jennifer Richter, http://calyxpress.org/2002prizefinalistrichter.htm ]]> http://www.27months.com/2006/10/transport/comment-page-1/#comment-4280 BamendaBabe Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:36:39 +0000 http://www.27months.com/?p=43#comment-4280 I am a very slow reader. Immutably so, I am afraid. But it is a good thing. I read the same way a turtle walks, as if I carry some kind of a rough, discolored burden in the shell of my mind. I am waiting for words to lighten the heavy yoke of stories I have yet to tell. I inch my way through words the way a snail slides its head from side to side, the tentacles of my heart contracting and expanding like the strange antennae that sit upon this snail's head. I am searching for something. And I am happy when I find what I am looking for. When I find a moment. A quiet, restful moment that feels like the long walk I choose to make on a dark road when I know that home is near. This is the moment you have captured below. It is perfect. It is beautiful. The slow reader in me thanks you heartily for it. I take this moment and fold it into the swirls of my snail shell house, stick it atop my turtle's bomb-shelter of a back. Tough in this moment. Safe in this moment. Thank you. I say to you, from one writer to another, you have a gift. “I wake up still in the taxi someplace vaguely familiar but not yet recognizable. We’re past Mile 17 but before GCE Board Junction, which is all that matters. A few minutes and 800 francs later I’m dropped at my darkened street and begin my solitary stroll toward home. On this uncharacteristically clear night, wisps of cloud sail overhead across a field of stars. The stars tonight are unusually close and bold, with an icy glitter in their light—glints of emerald, blue and gold. A yellow planet rises above the horizon to the south, brightest object in the sky. Venus. To the north the imposing dark mass of Mt. Cameroon rises skyward, eclipsing all. I pass by my friend Valentine’s barber shop where a scruffy white dog sleeps under the fluorescent light. Cresting a short hill, the road dips into the heart of Sandpit. Ahead on the left is my tailor’s tiny shop built from a shipping container and next to it the place where I buy my MTN phone cards. A scrawny cat crosses my path. I turn to the right. Home.” -Taken from TRANSPORT by Bill Z. I am a very slow reader. Immutably so, I am afraid. But it is a good thing. I read the same way a turtle walks, as if I carry some kind of a rough, discolored burden in the shell of my mind. I am waiting for words to lighten the heavy yoke of stories I have yet to tell. I inch my way through words the way a snail slides its head from side to side, the tentacles of my heart contracting and expanding like the strange antennae that sit upon this snail’s head. I am searching for something. And I am happy when I find what I am looking for. When I find a moment. A quiet, restful moment that feels like the long walk I choose to make on a dark road when I know that home is near.

This is the moment you have captured below. It is perfect. It is beautiful. The slow reader in me thanks you heartily for it. I take this moment and fold it into the swirls of my snail shell house, stick it atop my turtle’s bomb-shelter of a back. Tough in this moment. Safe in this moment. Thank you. I say to you, from one writer to another, you have a gift.

“I wake up still in the taxi someplace vaguely familiar but not yet recognizable. We’re past Mile 17 but before GCE Board Junction, which is all that matters. A few minutes and 800 francs later I’m dropped at my darkened street and begin my solitary stroll toward home. On this uncharacteristically clear night, wisps of cloud sail overhead across a field of stars. The stars tonight are unusually close and bold, with an icy glitter in their light—glints of emerald, blue and gold. A yellow planet rises above the horizon to the south, brightest object in the sky. Venus. To the north the imposing dark mass of Mt. Cameroon rises skyward, eclipsing all. I pass by my friend Valentine’s barber shop where a scruffy white dog sleeps under the fluorescent light. Cresting a short hill, the road dips into the heart of Sandpit. Ahead on the left is my tailor’s tiny shop built from a shipping container and next to it the place where I buy my MTN phone cards. A scrawny cat crosses my path. I turn to the right. Home.” -Taken from TRANSPORT by Bill Z.

thats a classic line (albeit in a weird way, though).

Just priceless!