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34 The Golden Tortoise What can we do to ease her pain? How does she feel about our visit? You wish to help me heal? Please let me forgive you R As I travel from mountain to sea, from city to village, jungle to paddy, and old firebase site to thronging market, faces, encounters, stories collect like an album of snapshots. The very word itself is telling; a snapshot was originally a quick, unaimed shot with a gun. Snapshots My friend and guide Tran Dinh Song tells me of the first time his mother, on a market trip from her mountain village, encountered a cold treat she was sure her son would love. She wraps sweet ice cream in fresh banana leaves and hikes to her far village with this gift for her son On every street of every town, vendors who have no other work greet or chase every potential customer. “Buy something, friend.” He presses my hand between warm stumps I again visit my friend in Hoi An, Do Thanh Son, a young sculptor who would rather go hungry reading philosophy than carve the stone souvenirs that allow his family to eat. I tour his tiny shop. Sharpened steel strut of a rotting U.S. tank— his chiseling tool 35 Edward Tick A woman veteran and I cross mountain peaks where we survey great vistas of forest and seacoast. In thick white clouds small pines speckle burned soil— the old nurse’s tears In a remote village, I am invited into an old man’s tiny wood frame home to meet his granddaughter and stand before his family altars memorializing his parents, wife, and two sons killed fighting Americans. Incense, candles, fruit— his two sons in black and white fading R I arrive again in Ha Noi, long time capital first shown to Ly Thai To, a Vietnamese king, 1,000 years ago by a dragon that burst from its lake waters and flew to the sky. Ta Vong, the lake in the center of the proud city, once hosted the golden tortoise, messenger of the Emperor of Waters. Now the mists of night, the buzz of noisy crowds, the lights of modernity mingle with legend and history. Ha Noi On the still lake’s midnight surface a glowing tower competes with the full moon. On its unseen bottom a giant tortoise breathes. Reflections shimmer so brightly I do not know which to watch. In the nearby pagoda amid wafting incense smoke a gong awaits its mallet. ...

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