Some years ago I wrote a little poem that has been reproduced several times: a couple of anthologies, one of my own books, and twice in periodicals. That poem was about a chance meeting with a small boy in the yard of a Buddhist school in the heart of downtown Pleiku. The school had been rocketed a day or two earlier and one of the rockets had destroyed a statue of the Buddha that had been in the front playground of the school.
Let me go ahead and reproduce the poem which tells the story of what happened, a poem that gave me incredible problems with the rhyme scheme, before I continue:
Father Buddha
First published in The Practice of Peace (Sherman Asher Publishing)
for the Children of Pleiku
I walked two klicks down Le Loi Street
to a schoolyard, a Buddha broken in the dust
shattered by a rocket meant for us,
and saw you sitting in his hand
tossing carved pieces of the statue’s feet,
not even caring where they’d land.
What mattered was that I did not want to be
where and what I was and saw
that you had also had no choice. Some law,
legal in my case, chance in yours,
with no way out that you or I could see,
gave me a twelve month, you a lifetime, tour.
We shared a cigarette and watched the smoke
rise into the red dust Pleiku air.
You laughed, blew smoke rings with the flair
that comes only when you’re very young.
You told me I was on the Buddha’s throat
and should beware the Buddha’s tongue.
I remember that once, when the war was calm,
we laughed and played with shattered stones,
and know there can be no way to atone
for all the wounds, the pain, the death.
If you still live, rest quietly in father Buddha’s palm;
if not, sleep peacefully in the Buddha's breath.
And so, earlier today (all my papers graded and not quite ready to start another project and in the middle of a new memoir of my Vietnam war year) I was spending some leisure time with Google’s maps and the satellite images. I headed west from San Francisco, on to Korea and south to Vietnam where I pulled up the area of Pleiku Provice (now Gia Lai Province). I traveled east on Highway 664 with the satellite images as close as I could get them to the road and the houses until that road crossed Le Loi Street (also called Highway 14, the road to Kontum and Dak To) in the middle of the town. That’s where the school was but it was no longer there.
Instead, I saw a large building called the Hoang Anh Gia Lai Hotel. Here’s a description of what took the place of that war-devastated little school where I once sat and smoked with a Vietnamese child who would now be in his late 40s:
***
"...You are so beautiful Pleiku
Breaking my heart into pieces... "
The passionate ballad by musician Nguyen Cuong has captured the soul of many tourists who visited the beautiful highland city. Pleiku - with its almost always foggy atmosphere, its wintery evenings, its winding roads encirling the various hills and mounts - emerges like a breathtakingly beautiful painting. Tourist are also lured by the various cultural festivals such as Cong Chieng Festival, Pa Thi Festival, ect... As well as its famous landscapes, among them Bien Ho Lake and Yaly Falls.. With its Grand Opening in December of 2005, Hoang Anh Gia Lai Hotel located downtown has become an indispensable part of this romantic city, adding to it the auras of modern life: it is the fist internation 4 - stars hotel in Pleiku. Welcome to our beloved Gia Lai hometown and especially our Hotel. Whether you're here for a once-in-a-lifetime expedition, for a rejuvenating vacation or simply just for a wonderful time, you will be satisfied with our professional staff and friendly services.
Time passes and what was is no more. Sic transit Gloria and all that.
Still, though, there should be room even for Buddhist schools in a place as repressive as the unified country of Vietnam. Some day, there will be.
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