Nhat Chi Mai
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- Category: Poem & Music
Because now the persecution is worse,
Nhat Chi Mai, a Buddhist nun
from a good home,
with many friends,
sits alone in a Saigon intersection
and honors you
with flames that continue
from your own.
For her, too,
my head touches the ground.
Vietnam, May 16, 1967
* * *
I was serving in Viet Nam in the U.S. Army in May, 1967, and sought refuge
in a small Buddhist Temple in Bien Hoa. I am told it no longer exists. I
did not know it at the time, but I was already a Buddhist then. All I knew
was that in that temple I found the only peace I could find from the war.
Warren C. Norwood
