My Mother Was Making Chamomile Tea.

My mother was making chamomile tea the day
the Vietnam War broke out. She was standing at the

stove in the kitchen, stirring a pot of water; her back
turned to the television, which was
in black and white.

Suddenly, she heard the news reporter say the word
"War," and she screamed and dropped the large spoon
she had been holding, and called her mother on the
black and white phone that hung from the wall-

war, she wheezed into the phone, and her mother, who
had seen three wars before this one, murmured, "I know,
I know," over and over again,
her words like molasses.

The soldiers, my mother said, what of the soldiers?
So brave and handsome,
are on the front line.

My grandmother:
Nothing can be done about the soldiers, they are where
they should be, God will take care of them.

I do not know if my mother believed in those words;
only the dimming of gun shots lessened after time,
and they have traded sounds-instead of gun shots,
they are now the ching! Ching of the cash register
in her sewing shop.

That is all we
hear, now, of war; and the thrum of the cars as they speed up
and down the highways, spinning tales with their
exhaust pipes.