Another poem from my 1996 stay in Viet Nam. What a brooding little bastard I was. I had some really great times there too, don't get the wrong impression. But my happy poems from that trip are even worse. Goodbye Your coast cuts like a jagged piece of a puzzle and I wonder if it will act as the final missing piece that completes my picture, if it will fit, snug and tight, keep all the other pieces from moving around. Now i'm supposed to say goodbye but i've done it before. I said goodbye in 1975 before I knew how to talk, flew away from you before I learned to walk. I said goodbye to you when my grandfather let the last of your air out of his lungs, hoping that his dreams would look like your green hills haunted by fog. I said goodbye when I started to be afraid that I was leaving the kiss of your language behind I said goodbye when the waves rolled off Sa Huynh taking my footsteps away with it. I'll be dreaming of returning to you whether or not I have the right to. I'll see my sleeping body float on the green waters of Ha Long my soul wandering down the wandering streets of Da Lat my spirit sparkle as bright as the city lights of Saigon. I'll be dreaming of my next chance to say goodbye to you again.

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