Red Clay Dust on a White Ghost Orchid
We were drinking coffee by our Hueys
in the long low light of the Dak To dawn
when a company clerk ran toward us,
each step kicking up a great puff
of the dusty red clay that was the
airstrip in the dry season:
“Raits, Raits, you got three confirmed kills.” he shouted.
My fellow door gunners jumped up and cheered
and I jumped up too
though I felt a nagging in my soul
that our cheerleader glee was somehow wrong.
Maybe it was even worse
than my pressing both forefingers on the twin triggers
to chase the running figures with red tracers
as they tried vainly to reach the safety of a bomb crater.
Nearly forty years later,
I lament how easy it was
to obliterate in an instant their dreams
and how easily my square corners of
boyhood innocence melted off
so I could slip into that bottomless round hole.
I look now at a
blooming white phaleonopsis
and I pray there is a
gently dancing, pure white and clean ghost orchid
for my three ghosts to see.
Eric Raits 2005
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