Agent Blue
To kill correctly
takes calculation.
Down to a science.
Arsenic
cacodylic acid.
Know water and rice
on a cellular level.
Make sure
no surviving
seed can be
collected
and planted.
Because even
a small seed
assures
survival.
Because
mortars,
grenades
and bombs
can not destroy
a grain.
Because our
heart is made
of seeds.
Know what it
takes to kill
the seeds.
Know what it
takes to deprive
the plant of water,
to dehydrate it.
To be surrounded
by love but unable
to absorb it.
By Teresa Mei Chuc
“Agent Blue” first appeared in Kyoto Journal
Teresa Mei Chuc, author of three collections of poetry, Red Thread (Fithian Press, 2012), Keeper of the Winds (FootHills Publishing, 2014) and Invisible Light (Many Voices Press, 2018), was born in Saigon, Vietnam and immigrated to the U.S. under political asylum with her mother and brother shortly after the Vietnam War while her father remained in a Vietcong “reeducation” prison camp for nine years. Since the age of two, Teresa grew up in the Tongva village of Hahamongna (Pasadena, California) where she still lives and loves. Teresa is a graduate of the Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing program (Poetry) at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont and teaches literature and writing at a public high school in Los Angeles.
Teresa is the first of many poets who will be featured in our Poets’ Corner. I find her poetry to be profound, moving, and thought-provoking. Doug Rawlings
Teresa Mei Chuc poem was featured in a new paper on Agent Blue the arsenic based herbicide used in the Vietnam War.
https://www.scirp.org/pdf/ojss_2020112716124414.pdf
Ken Olson