REBIRTH

MESSAGE

Life has left her footprints on my forehead

but I have become a child again this morning,

The smile, seen through leaves and flowers, is back, to smooth

away the wrinkles

as the rains wipe away footprints on the beach. Again a

cycle of birth and death begins.

I walk on thorns, but firmly, as among flowers.

I keep my head high.

Rimes bloom among sounds of bombs and mortars.

The tears I shed yesterday have become rain,

I feel calm hearing its sound on the thatched roof.

Childhood (o my birthland!) is calling me

and the rain melts my despair.

I am still here alive, able to smile quietly. The sweet fruit

brought forth by the tree of sufferings!

Carrying the dead corpse of my brother, I go across the rice-field

in the darkness.

Earth will keep thee tight within her arms, dear one,

so that tomorrow thou wilt be reincarnated in flowers -

those flowers smiling quietly in this morning field.

This moment you weep no more, dear one - we have gone through

too deep a night!

This morning, yes, this morning, I kneel down on the green grass

when I feel your presence.

O flowers which carry the smile of ineffability!

The message

the message of love and sacrifice

has indeed come to us.

poem by

NHAT HANH

drawing by

VO-DINH

IN MEMORIAM: Vietnam 1961 - 1973

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