The Vietnam Soldiers

with thanks to Ted Kooser
 
They have set aside their green bone helmets,
cut and bruised,
splashed with drips of red and rust;
and their tired-out, mudded-down guns
of achromatic carbon, swamp brown,
mud green, and ruddy copper;
their pockets half full of gold bullets;
limbs in wet bandage;
limp jackets with gnat-eaten holes;
and have stormed in broken and with heat
into the film of cool, soft whispers,
assonance, laughter, affection
in moonlight, sparkling night
amethysts and diamonds, the yellow Vietnam photos
rise like a breeze
under white creamy morning snow
as if their souls were clouds
and the world had been nothing but sky.