poems from an asia war: two worlds of luu trong lu by don luce+ j.schafer + j. chagnon/ (usa 1971)

we promise one another - poems from an asia war -
 selected and published  by don luce, j.c. schafer
 + jacquelyn chagnon- washington d.c. 1971

                                     two worlds of luu trong lu
                                         don luce + j. c.schafer+ j. chagnon


It is hard  to imagine Vietnam at peace.  Before the war !  Which war? There have been so many.  " I was born in war, my father was killed by the war, and I was problably die a violent death because the war, " a seventy six year old student states matter-of-factly The modern song- writer Trịnh công Sơn, tells the history of imperalism against Việtnam in the melancholy verses of "The heritage of Our Mother Land":

                                 A thousand years slaves of the Chinese,
                                 A hundred dominated by the French,
                                 Twenty years of civil war,
                                 The heritage of our Mother Land,
                                 To leave for her children,
                                 The heritage of your Mother Land,
                                 The sad country of Việtnam.

But there were interludes of peace -- short , quiet seasons when laughter seigned over the land.  The cycle of life was determined by the rice crop -- and planting time and harvest were days of celebration and song.  Such an era is now recalled only by the village elders who reminisce about a time when the seasons came and went quietly, pounctuated by marriages  and unhappy love affairs rather than by spring and winter offensives; a time when it was quiet enough, if one listened to hear the rustle of the leaves and a flute sounding softly in the distance  a very different world indeed from that of modern Việtnam, the South at least, with its "sunset strip" bars that crowd around the American installations, blaring out and rock-and-roll songs,  and with helicopters droning and jets roaring in the sky above.

One such time is called Tiền Chiến Period, the period before the French Indochina War when  Vietnamese lived under the French but knew a kind of peace.  The first three of the following poems by Lưu trọng Lư bring back some of the beauty and peace of those days. His pre-war poems, particularly "The Sound of Aurumn" are still very popular.  They speak not of war, but of the age old struggles -- with the seasons, with love, with autumn sadness.   They are proof that the Vietnamese know in peace too there is heartache.  It is just that of luxury as sweet as its joys, for the larger tragedy of the war has deprived them of both for so long.

Some of Lưu trọng Lư' s recent poems also give impression to the timeless aspects of the Vietnamese experience.  In the following stanza from a poem written in 1965, an old man continues to plow this land in the midst of destruction:

                             Beside the bomb crater, still smoking
                             An old uncle already eighty
                             Plows agile as a youth.
                             The aged back presses deep to the heart of the earth,
                             Silver hair like Diên Hồng flies be fore the wind!

Lưu trọng Lư was born in 1912 and went to school in Huế, in what is now South Việtnam, but he along with many other famous poets of the pre-war period now livws in the North.  He writes of different kinds of struggles and many of his recent poems like "Women of the South," have dared to challenge the military might of the U.S. and have succeeded in shaking "the brass and steel of the White House."

             THE SOUND OF THE AUTUMN

           You don't listen to atumn
           Under the dim and restless moon.

           You aren t' concerned with
           Images of absent warriors
           In the hearts of lonely women.

             You don't listen to the autumn forest,
           The quiet rustle of the leaves
           Where a bewildered golden deer
           Steps on golden leaves.

            -- 1939

                                                                        WHITE CLOUDS

                                                             The white clouds fly over
                                                              An opening in the bamboo
                                                              An the autumn wind comes
                                                              And the old sadness, too.

                                                              And there are a few young men,
                                                              Who know sadness deep and blue
                                                              But in whose hearts bloom still
                                                              Dreams red of the brightest hue,

                                                              -- 1939


       WHEN AUTUMN ENDS
       
       Do you ever speak to me
       Words full of the love
       We knew when we were young?
       Do you ever speak to me
       When autumn leaves fall
       And lie in the empty yard,
       And the song of the flute,
       From behind some distant curtain.
       Softly sounds in the still air?

       Do you ever think of me
       When you hand reaches out
       And pulls a drooping leaf
       Down from its branch?
       Do you ever think of me
       As the birds laugh and the wind jokes
       And no one knows the love
       I hold for you in my heart.

                                                                             In a heart which is cold
                                                                Like the water of an autumn fake,
                                                                As the twilight falls
                                                                On a desolate night
                                                                I, I hope the days and months
                                                                Will not pass too quickly,
                                                                But you, you don' t care at all
                                                                How the present time passes

                                                                 And soon winter comes
                                                                 To the cold river bank,
                                                                 And hurriedly you marry,
                                                                 But, tell me, sometimes do you
                                                                 Still remember the vivid summer,
                                                                 And my love lingering
                                                                 In a corner of my heart.

                                                                 -- 1939.



               WOMEN BY THE SOUTH

                       TRẦN THỊ LÝ *

               Long hair, hair of a young mother
               Washed in the water of Thu Bồn
               Adorning your body, wounded in the hundred places. 
               In life and, laways loyal death.

                       MƯỜI ĐỒNG THÁP

                Just turned twenty
                Leader f three hundred struggles
                One leg left, you stand erect,
                A beautiful flag wrapping yor body!

   
                       NGUYỄN THỊ ÚT

                 A guerrilla of the Delta
                 Carrying you only child on  your hip,
                 Combing the river bank
                 Strikingthe ennemy as naturally as you go to market !


                        TẠ THỊ KIỀU

                 With a beautiful name from ancient times,
                 You're a faithful piece of uncle Hồ.
                 Striking the enemy, you' re a tiger
                 Speaking of it, you smile like a flower.


                         NGUYỄN THỊ ĐỊNH

                 In the assault you commend a hundred squads
                 Night returns, you sit mending fighters' clothes
                 Woman general of the South, descendent from Trắc and Nhị **
                 You've shaken the brass anD steel of the White House.

                    --1966
                    lưu trọng lư

                     -----
                       *    Trần thị Lý is a woman's name as are the other headings of this poem.
                     ** Trưng Trắc and Trưng Nhị, the famous Trưng sisters who led Vietnamese 
                           against the Chinese about 40 B.C.     
                         
                          

                  < We promise one another/ poems from an Asia war - p.   15-19)