July 4th and Jungle Dreams Tanka

inspired by Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods and written for Black Vietnam Veterans

July 4th
crossed out on his calendar ...
jungle dreams 
erupt like fireworks
through his war-torn mind

NeverEnding Story, July 4 2020

Note: Spike Lee closes Da 5 Bloods with a quote from a speech Martin Luther King made the year before he died, in which King quotes Langston Hughes: 

O, yes

I say it plain

America never was America to me

And yet I swear this oath—

America will be!