[Oe List ...] Have you been watching the Vietnam series on PBS?

[David Dunn]

Colleagues.

Burna and I have been glued to "The Vietnam War” for all ten episodes. 

Tonight, for lots of reasons, the last hour of the last episode of the documentary broke my heart wide open. I cried a lot.

David



Footnotes.

1. Apropos "the upheaval of all that has been"—The Introduction to a little book of poems, Poema dla Russki Druzye  (Poems for Russian Friends), 19 August 1992

A two-week visit in Moscow at the time of the abortive coup of August 19, 1991 and the reflection that followed during the next few months, is the occasion for an observation. A force is at work in the world with which historians, politicians, and sociologists have not yet reckoned—the powerful attraction between people once separated by ideology and ignorance. Even ten years ago, who could have imagined that on such a global scale the familiar, the prudent, the expected would all be set aside by life demanding to be reunited with life. Tourists, citizen diplomats, and entrepreneurs alike will be captured, broken open, and transformed by a passion for connection that arises in spite of all attempts to hold i back

These poems are a way of saying thank you to may people who have become new friends on this journey of transformation.

I know that the upheaval of all that has been is first and last an assault on the heart. I hope that you find courage to build what must be built.


2. Apropos the Viet Nam War veterans from both countries who were drawn together in Viet Nam to meet, remember, forgive, and serve: a poem from Poems for Russian Friends.

Electric Arms

You and I have been imprisoned by years of lies,
held hostage by terrorists of heart and mind,
afraid of letting either of us know the other.

We strain at the bars keeping us apart
with desperate longing to find the truth
and courage to embrace it.

Charged souls so long apart
must feel somewhere deep within,
so great a need to be united,
they will do foolish things
to find each other’s electric arms.


3. Apropos expanding one’s context through long term international, cross-cultural friendship—Burna’s and my friends, Alexey and Liuba Kuzmin in Moscow

Alexey and I met in August 1991 at a Russian-American Family Camp (Virginia Satir model) in Moscow. Our families have spent time together in both Moscow and the US. Alexey and I check in with each other more or less weekly over Skype. He’s teaching about Program Evaluation in Turin, Italy this week.


4. Apropos the image of Russia and America as two exhausted prize fighters locked in a sweaty clinch—another poem from Poems for Russian Friends

Mirrors

We live in a world of mirrors,
each nation reflected in another.
Only other eyes
see what we avoid;
only other hearts
forgive what we reject.



> On Sep 28, 2017, at 8:24 PM, Herman Greene wrote:
> 
> On the one hand we fought to defeat Communism and keep our promises to our allies, on the other we fought for a mistake. The lives of the people involved in the war on all sides, perpetrators and victims, were forgotten.

—





David Dunn
740 S Alton Way 9B
Denver, CO 80247
720-314-5991
dmdunn1 at gmail.com

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