Handbags   (The sad, the bad and the ugly. Non-productive stuff here.)

La Plaine des Jarres


From Delta of the Mekong
To mountains of The Jin
Ran the trail
Of Hồ Chí Minh.
On ancient wonders
Your eye may feast,
Where it crosses Lau
In the North-East.

In there Hundreds
Spread Afar
Giant, Two-Thousand year old
Stone jars.
Each, from Sandstone,
Or Granite, hewn.
Some, perfect
As if
From lathe were turn.

But, The Hot Front
Of The Cold War
Did, around
La Plaine des Jarres
Prevail.
Uncle Sam fought General Giáp
Two MILLION tons of bombs he drop.
But it was to no avail.
Giáp always held the trail.

Craters pock mark and scour
The ground all around.
The urns, in turn
Remain quite sound.
(Well, almost)




(By the end of the war, 7 million tons of bombs had been dropped on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia - more than twice the amount of bombs dropped on Europe and Asia in World War II.)