Vietnam Memorial

It is we who move, are moved, who reach our eyes to search the list, our hands to touch the names, each name the most precious, each more precious than all the others -- so many search the names, so many names . . . and now I see the stone alone is not the monument. It is the watchers, movers, too -- their silences, concerns, their eyes, their hands, reaching to the names . . . all the young names, realizing, realizing . . .