Edgar A. Tieman

VALLEY OF SCREAMING SOULS

In an untouched valley somewhere in Cambodia
I was abruptly woken from my snooze?
Was it the SQUELCH of the mike or a SCREAM
That woke me?

All was silent as the rotors coasted to a stop
Except for the Pilots voice in my ear?
“This is the Valley of Screaming Souls.”
I blinked and rubbed my eyes several times
Not believing but believing what I was seeing
Following the pointing finger of the pilot
Bones upon bones upon bones?
We landed to let the Vietnamese pay respect

The wisps of early morning ground fog
Giving a life like ghostly shape to each
The morning dew forming tears in the corners
Of their hollowed eyes of their bleached skulls
While watching the color of the bones change
From the black of night to the STARK white of day

They lay as they fell so many years ago
Their life drained from them into the ground
Never moving from whence they fell

Though silence did not fall for me as I stepped out
Was I the only one that heard or was it the sound
Of the wind and fog whispering through the bones

Bullets from the Khmer Rouge ripping
RIPPING through the air then into their flesh
Bring them to a horrible and painful death
Jaws frozen open in mid scream as they fell
No one came to recover or claim the fallen there
From where hundreds fathers and brothers fell

Hundreds of them lay there partially buried
Half of each covered other half not
Like the spirits of the ground and sky
Are pulling both ways at the same time
Unable to move either direction.

Skulls empty eye sockets looking in all directions
Bleached bones lay disjoined scattered about
Like a tangled skeletal jigsaw puzzle
Waiting to be matched joined together
Jaws still open in the position of mid scream

Some even appeared as if one was trying to comfort another.
A head in one lap, and fingers of others touching
On some the index finger curled as if
Still pulling the trigger on their AK 47
Some looked as if they fell before taking a step
Others looked like they fell charging their enemy

From the Valley of Screaming Souls we left
To hunt those not so obvious above the ground
A mission that I know that will never be finished
I salute those in the Valley of Screaming Souls
But as the winds of time pass which way I wonder
They will be pulled
Into the ground
Or into the sky?