Wooden Truths.

The package arrived on a January afternoon with weathered masking tape creeping over the cardboard corners. Dad's birthday was creeping closer and my Mother had ordered him a present from Vietnam. My brother and I stared in curiosity at the postage ink that bled into FRAGILE printed in red block letters. Inside the cardboard there was a wooden B-52 Bomber wrapped between faded Vietnamese newspaper. The bottom of the box was littered with wood shavings and yellow cigarette stubs. For weeks after the plane’s curious arrival I caught myself questioning the cigarette butts. They smelled the same as my grandfathers. Earthy. Homey. Familiar in the curios way of being that leaves you awake at night sewing stories from leftover memories. Who smoked them? Were they still in some big factory on the other side of the world? Why did they make the plane? The Birthday came and went and the glossy B-52 with carved wings and tiny wooden landing gear sat in the study collecting dust. Years later Mom and Dad got divorced and the plane disappeared somewhere in between. Today while crawling through a former Viet Cong tunnel the B-52 with its box full of mysteries stirred it’s head in the room for collected moments. Even after fifty years it’s hard to miss the house sized hole left behind by the B-52’s cargo. In Cu Chi alone there are over 100,000 craters that have left the jungle lopsided. Standing beside the hole I picture the plane from my father’s study, tiny wooden wings holding tiny wooden bombs. Growing up you can never quite imagine things in their true size. Growing up the story is always changing. Jackie, the guide, begins in his thick Vietnamese accent “I am glad to talk with you today because you do not yet know. Here, the story has many sides." Tiny wooden wings holding tiny wooden truths.

#vietnam #artofleaving #poetry #wander