It is a clear sign of my age
that I recall the hours we spent
learning about America, what
it stood for, how it was welcoming
to immigrants from everywhere,
why America was the greatest
country in the world, and we
incredibly naively ate it up.
Vietnam brought us a large dose
of the ugly reality of the modern age.
Half a century on that dark era
seems remarkably bright
in the dark soulless present when
freedom is increasingly reserved
to some and denied to many
and freedom is now a weapon
now in the hands of those who claim
to wield it in the name of a God
that no one could hope to identify.