Yusef Komunyakaa, Senator John Kerry, director Julie Taymor, composer Elliot Goldenthal, and Vietnam War veterans discuss the awful mix of beauty and horror in war.
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by Yusef Komunyakaa
“You and I Are Disappearing”
–Björn Håkansson
The cry I bring down from the hills
belongs to a girl still burning
inside my head. At daybreak
she burns like a piece of paper.
She burns like foxfire
in a thigh-shaped valley.
A skirt of flames
dances around her
at dusk.
We stand with our hands
hanging at our sides,
while she burns
like a sack of dry ice.
She burns like oil on water.
She burns like a cattail torch
dipped in gasoline.
She glows like the fat tip
of a banker’s cigar,
silent as quicksilver.
A tiger under a rainbow
at nightfall.
She burns like a shot glass of vodka.
She burns like a field of poppies
at the edge of a rain forest.
She rises like dragonsmoke
to my nostrils.
She burns like a burning bush
driven by a godawful wind.
“You and I Are Disappearing”
–Björn Håkansson
The cry I bring down from the hills
belongs to a girl still burning
inside my head. At daybreak
she burns like a piece of paper.
She burns like foxfire
in a thigh-shaped valley.
A skirt of flames
dances around her
at dusk.
We stand with our hands
hanging at our sides,
while she burns
like a sack of dry ice.
She burns like oil on water.
She burns like a cattail torch
dipped in gasoline.
She glows like the fat tip
of a banker’s cigar,
silent as quicksilver.
A tiger under a rainbow
at nightfall.
She burns like a shot glass of vodka.
She burns like a field of poppies
at the edge of a rain forest.
She rises like dragonsmoke
to my nostrils.
She burns like a burning bush
driven by a godawful wind.
“You and I Are Disappearing,” from Dien Cai Dau © 1988 by Yusef Komunyakaa. Published by Wesleyan University Press and used with permission.
Poet
Former US Secretary of State
Director
Composer
Vietnam War Veteran
Vietnam War Veteran
Vietnam War Veteran
Vietnam War Veteran
Former US Secretary of State John Kerry recalls his time as a soldier fighting in the Vietnam War. “I remember actually thinking we were being shot at once, and we were hunkered down in mud. I said to myself, does anybody at home really care about what we're doing here?”
Yusef Komunyaaka, known then as James Brown, served not only as soldier in the US Army and also as editor of The Southern Cross, the US Army newspaper. In an issue from November 1969, Brown writes on racism in the Army: “it takes a creative response toward racial understanding to keep democracy as a workable philosophy.” His words ring true today. Courtesy of Americal Foundation
“We stand with our hands / hanging at our sides, / while she burns,” writes Yusef Komunyakaa, reflecting on the hardships of war in his poem “You and I Are Disappearing.” Here, weary marines walk through burned-over rice patties in Dong Ha, central Vietnam. Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration
Fog hangs over the lush mountains of northern Vietnam. Recalls former US Secretary of State John Kerry, “A lot of people who were in Vietnam and who fought there came away with a profound sense of the beauty of the place, I mean, it was really beautiful.” Courtesy of Richard Mortel
Director Julie Taymor considers the difficult process of turning traumatic experience—as Komunyakaa’s, during the Vietnam war— into art. “How do you take the godawful experiences and nightmares and dreams and put them onto paper?”
