The sound of the
bamboo flute ...
Da Nang Air Base, 1965: On K-9 patrol with Blackie, south of Da Nang Air Base. The sun had dipped beneath the hills, flaming the sky with its afterglow, and converting bruised clouds to shades of rust and blood red. Man's storm brewed luminous bands of colored flares that soon waltzed an aurora borealis over the western mountains.
Through the night, distant arty thumped a rhythmic heartbeat in the earth.
At dawn, rippled clouds of pink fled the molten sunrise as its sunburst
fanned upwards from the horizon, tinting, then torching the flat
altocumulus clouds a burnt orange to scarlet red.
Soon, the valley is alive with yellow-wing butterflies, on blossomed
fields of dew.
Our hilltop provided a spectacular view of two fishermen waist deep in the
meandering gentle river below--their village, on the far bank, is a
watercolor of tranquility. Grayish smoke comes out from the rooftop of
every house, like a magical veil wafting lazily between heaven and earth.
In the distance, parched elephant grass resembled Montana's amber fields
of grain sweeping to-and-fro in rippled waves.
Dandelions of
hundreds of leaflets 
surfed and trashed the tranquil fertile valley like the streets of east
L.A. The dawns' aircraft that had scattered the propaganda leaflets was
now a speck on the horizon, and yet leaflets still seesawed down from a
thousand feet, like maple leafs of New England.
Animated Butterfly, courtesy of Cheryl Boswell, Pathways.
