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)
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