---
Imagine for a moment, your country being at war,
land practically moon-cratered from the Demons who soared
without relent, then comes a new regime for the poor.
Khmer Rougean* communism intervenes by the sword
of child soldiery, and your family's forced to evacuate,
to these "Utopian" labor camps eating porridge to sap the strain,
maybe a couple forks full for more than half the day's savage pain.
Imagine a regime that believed money was the root of evil,
so they banned currency but continued abusing people.
Surely that explains... enough to keep one captivated... at least
the reasonable kind.
But compared to what the story really has to say...
well, just keep that in mind:
---
Cambodia
1976
Another day gone, five children and an ailing husband,
starving for something more than just lunch or wailing hunger.
Sure, tonight I'll hand this bowl of rice to my infant,
he'll just consume it like a bolt of lightning had hit it,
he'll even seem satisfied for a minute, but I know...
I see something vastly different is trapped inside:
the saddest eyes, his face contorted in such a way,
that it crafts, designs, and maps his mind.
Quite the atlas, -sized by the tear drops, freezing Drylands.
And the others surely won't survive another season like that.
But today, I discovered there might just be a slight chance,
for escape, out of this dying wife's dance to the grave!
The War has slackened its pace, the Americans have erased
much but they've still left the land in it's place!
I'm not Vietnamese... no... but I know enough of the language to;
wait, that's it!
---
With purpose in mind, life takes a rather potent form,
however, those rogues made sure there were no reports
of Cambodians escaping via the roads of a slowing war.
Not a War disclosing force against a socially pure,
Utopian score. (Composed to ignore any Hope for a cure!)
So to ensure the many hopeful peasantry remained abreast,
they issued a language test for those souls seeking refuge from the dangerous stress.
---
We are just a family headed for the gallows*,
I'm just a woman seeking a Heaven's path home.
If it's not where you're from, surely it's where you need to be; Home.
Just an abstract subject to change, and very easily so.
The key lies in the recollection of a language long withered,
so I gave my children Vietnamese names,
anything to make the Rouge believe in this game.
The challenge lies in the examination ahead,
our only shot at freedom is the same day that I dread.
All winter I spent my free hours trying to prepare for this,
simple test, the single entity that will define my parentage.
Another day gone, five children, still dealing with hunger's grasp,
but tonight my husband passed.
The greatest husband! A hero of a man; deceased.
Yes, these tears reveal as much, but it's quite the tragedy.
But blessings seem to come in packages so highly baffling:
because without him we'll be able to afford the price for traveling.
I simply feel my life unraveling... but never mind that;
tonight, we pack our things.
---
What is life if not a simple test of one's knowledge?
The randomness of experience, the phantom within the spiritless,
the rest of us probably deal with similar stresses in college,
but imagine if the fear was ripped from the hand that seems to deal it,
and left to thrust its pincers at our families;
what of spirit then?
A hero is more than nature's way of giving honor to the righteous.
More than being father to the mightiest. (Daughter to the vices!)
They could have been simply led into the slaughter of the violence.
But a mother passed the test that yields one coffers filled with priceless...
Freedom.
Home.
Family.
The priceless coffer that is Knowledge.
---------
Certainly based on a true story, if you hadn't noticed:
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge
*http://www.ted.com/talks/sophal_ear_escaping_the_khmer_rouge.html
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