I didn't want a monument,
not even one as sober as that
vast black wall of broken lives.
I didn't want a postage stamp.
I didn't want a road beside the Delaware
River with a sign proclaiming:
"Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway."

What I wanted was a simple recognition
of the limits of our power as a nation
to inflict our will on others.
What I wanted was an understanding
that the world is neither black-and-white
nor ours.

What I wanted
was an end to monuments.

Copyright © 1984 by W. D. Ehrhart
To Those Who Have Gone Home Tired, Thunder's Mouth Press, 1984

This poem is currently published in
Beautiful Wreckage, New & Selected Poems, Adastra Press, 1999