The Dragon Jar

The Dragon Jar What better place for fearsome beasts of fire than airless thickets choked in green excesses where weary soldiers stumble and aspire for nothing more than living through the year? Vast plantation harvests have all ended death comes calling as soldiers ply their trade row on row of rubber trees untended now scarred by shrapnel not the sapper's blade. Weeks of scratching foxholes in the hard-pan and sleeping in the dirt before they're dead fatigue and fear, they follow every man into a tiny clearing, there to rest. Nearby, highway one has little movement save boom-boom girls on Honda motor bikes who brave the free fire zones to pay the rent where all conduct a business to lament. Well shaded by a bent and threadbare tree and encircled by a fence at clearing's edge there stands a small platoon of pottery as in formation, standing dress-right-dress The soldiers, in passing pause to wonder of jars too large to carry, filled with soil left outside, devoid of human plunder faux vases for the weeds that grow within. One jar draws attention from the others, it stands apart with glaze of earthen brown outshining the dull clay of its brethren, a dragon image reaching base to crown. A soldier who has time for art admires the jar's beauty, and incongruity, and thoughtless of it's purpose he conspires to make the dragon jar the spoils of war. A fellow soldier helps tilt the vessel they pour the rich, black soil out on the ground, to be scattered by the arid winds of summer, and walked on as the others gather 'round. The Dragon Jar's inside a house in Brookland it helps provide oriental decor, near highway one, fertile dust is blowing, and a soul is want to wander, evermore.