Postcards From Cambodia

[Verse 1]
Abe Lincoln once turned to somebody and said
"Do you ever find yourself talking with the dead?"

[Verse 2]
There are three tiny death's heads carved out of mammoth tusk
On the ledge in my bathroom
They grin at me in the morning when I'm taking a leak
But they say very little

[Verse 3]
Outside Phnom Penh there's a tower, glass-paneled
Maybe ten meters high
Filled with skulls from the killing fields
Most of them lack the lower jaw
So they don't exactly grin
But they whisper, as if from a great distance
Of pain, and of pain left far behind
Eighteen thousand empty eyeholes
Peering out at the four directions

[Verse 4]
Electric fly buzz—green moist breeze—
Bone-coloured Brahma bull grazes wet-eyed
Hobbled in hollow of mass grave
In the neighbouring field
A small herd of young boys plays soccer
Their laughter swallowed in expanding silence

[Chorus]
This is too big for anger
It's too big for blame
We stumble through history so
Humanly lame
So I bow down my head
Say a prayer for us all
That we don't fear the spirit
When it comes to call

[Verse 5]
The sun will soon slide down
Into the far end of the ancient reservoir
Orange ball merging with its water-borne twin
Below airbrushed edges of cloud
But first it spreads itself
A golden scrim behind fractal sweep of swooping flycatchers
Silhouetted dark green trees
Blue horizon

[Verse 6]
The rains are late this year
The sky has no more tears to shed
But from the air Cambodia remains
A disc of wet green, bordered by bright haze
Water-filled bomb craters—sunstreak gleam—
Stitched in strings across patchwork land
March west toward the far hills of Thailand
Macro analog of Angkor Wat's temple walls'
Intricate bas-relief of thousand-year-old battles
Pitted with AK rounds

[Verse 7]
And under the sign of the seven-headed cobra
The naga who sees in all directions
Seven million landmines lie in terraced grass, in paddy, in bush
(Call it a minescape now)

[Verse 8]
Sally holds the beggar's hand and cries
At his scarred up face and absent eyes
And right leg gone from above the knee
Tears spot the dust on the worn stone causeway
Whose sculpted guardians row on row
Half frown, half smile, mysterious, mute

[Chorus]
And this is too big for anger
It's too big for blame
We stumble through history so
Humanly lame
So I bow down my head
Say a prayer for us all
That we don't fear the spirit when it comes to call
This is too big for anger
It's too big for blame
We stumble through history so
Humanly lame
So I bow down my head
Say a prayer for us all
That we don't fear the spirit when it comes to call