Poem: For Warmth by Thich Nhat Hanh

I hold my face in my two hands.
No, I am not crying.
I hold my face in my two hands
to keep the loneliness warm—
two hands protecting,
two hands nourishing,
two hands preventing
my soul from leaving me
in anger.

Written after the bombing of Ben Tre, Vietnam when an American military man made the comment, "We had to destroy the town in order to save it."

From the book Call Me By My True Names (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1999)

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