Why We Have War

by Publius

This afternoon, we had a faculty meeting, during which the vice-principal explained that we need to be nice to foreigners. This is because, “When Ho Chi Minh was in Wisconsin, he hated it. They weren’t nice to him. And that’s why we had the Vietnam War.”

I found this weirdly inspiring. For decades, I’d wondered why I fought in Vietnam, and now I had the answer — people are just not nice enough. Her remarks reminded me of a poem by Ernesto Cardenal in which a lonely Hitler waits for a young lady to pass. Below is my poem followed by Cardenal’s in Spanish:

for E. C.

every afternoon she’d stroll with her mother
along Mockingbird Lane and every afternoon

where Mockingbird crosses Bishop
Boulevard there at the corner

George Bush waited for her to pass
as university students learned how to kiss

and even the little children held hands
W. never learned how to dance

and he never dared a word with her
one day she passed without her mother

one day she passed with an ROTC cadet
then one day she didn’t stroll by at all

that’s why he bombed Iraq
that’s why he tortured anyone with answers

______

Todas las tardes paseaba
con su madre por la Landetrasse

Y en la esquina
de la Schmiedtor
todas las tardes

Estaba Hitler
esperándola para verla pasar

Los taxis y los omnibus
iban llenos de besos

Y los novios alquilaban botes
en el Danubio.

Pero él no sabía
bailar. Nunca se atrevió
a hablarte

Después pasaba sin su madre
con un cadete.

Y después
no volvió a pasar.

De ahí más tarde
la Gestapo
la anexión de Australia,

La guerra mundial.

_____

Filed under: Prose, Publius