Unfortunately, Instagram would not allow me to mark the following painting as “sensitive”. When I began to paint this, I had no idea where it was going. What could I do with a poorly-painted human form that looked like a corpse? Then it clicked: I was eerily reminded that Cambodians were left as nothing on “killing fields” by the Khmer Rouge. I either did not know or remember that the #CambodianGenocide. ended only 45 years ago on January 7th. As I researched and painted, I thought about what the Cambodian Buddhist monk in the painting would think (The painting is at the end of this poem. If you are sensitive, please do not look at the painting.):
“As my garment of the monk that I was
“Blended with the blood that sunk as flies buzz
“Above me (and my life that penetrated ground
“(So much that which is cloth of Buddhist robes confound)
“My soul cries out and wonders if my family
“Will ever identify what calamity
“Left of me on the thorn, thistle, and briar.
“Will I be abandoned with no pyre
“For what remains of me?
“My relatives can’t see
“Or call out my name, or hear—
“As they, too, have not one bier
“Or mourner left to carry them—for I perceive
“The voices of loved ones agonizingly leave
“The mortal realm and join me among the souls
“Of the victims of the Khmer Rogue as rolls
“The field in which my body lays (and in which my eyes
“(No longer bring forth water, but bring forth what belies
“Any claim of any wisdom by the Khmer Rouge).
“As strong waves of red from socket to socket deluge
“More than the Mekong River ever could flood,
“The clay of my form softens as if the mud
“Of a bank it was destined to be
“Instead of committed properly
“According to Cambodian tradition—
“All because of Pol Pot’s dereliction.”
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