two worlds of lưu trọng lư (we promise one another/ poems from an asian war/ selected, published by don luce + john .c. schafer. jacquelyne chagnon -- washington d.c. 1971

two worlds of lưu trọng lư ...
we promise one another ...  washington d.c. 1971

(LUU TRONG LU [ 1912- hanoi 1991]   vu par  PHAN NGUYEN artist)       

is a Vietnamese poet, writer, play writer.  He was born in 1912 at Cao Lao Ha 

village, Bố Trạch District, Quảng Bình Province, North Central Coast VN.

He attended Quốc học Huế school, then moved to Hanoi to work as a writer

and journalist.  He wrote many famous poems.  He was one of the founders of

New  Poetry Movement ( Phong trào Thơ Mới) in Việtnam  ...

- WIKIPEDIA -

                                  

                             two works of lưu trọng lư

It is hard to imagine Việtnam 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 shall probably die a violent death  because of the  war,"  a twenty-six-year old student states matter-of- factly.  The modern song-writer, Trịnh công Sơn, tells the history of imperialism against Việtnam in the melancholy verses of 'The Heritage of Our Mother Land':

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

But there were interludes of peaces-- short, quiet seasons when laughter reigned 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, punctuated by marriages and unhappy love affairs rather then 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 --  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 the 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 thee French Indochina War when Vietnamese lived under the French but knew a kind of peace.  The first three of 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 Autumn', are still very popular.  They speak not of war, but the age-old struggles -- with the seasons, with love, with autumn sadness. They are proof that the Vietnamese the heartaches of peaceful life have assumed an aura of luxury a 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 expression to the Timeless aspects of the Vietnamese experience.  In the following stanza from  a poem written in 1965, an old man continues to plow his land in the midst of destruction:

                                Beside the bomb carter, still smoking,
                                An old uncle already eighty
                                Plow agile ad a youth.
                                The aged back presses deep to the heart of the earth,
                                Silver hair like 'Diên Hồng' flies before 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 lives in the North. He writes of different kinds of the fourth poem 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 AUTUMN


You don' t listen  to autumn
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
                                                      And 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 lake,
                                                            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 are at all
                                                            How the present time pass.

                                                            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 IN THE SOUTH


                   Trần thị Lý *

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


                  Mười Đồng Tháp

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


                   Nguyễn thị Út

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


                    Tạ thị Kiều

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


                    Nguyễn thị Định

In a assault you command a hundred squad.
Night returns, you sit mending fighters' clothes.
Woman general of the South, descended from Trắc' and' Nhị', **
You've shaken the brass and steel of the White House,
--1966

 []

             
                p. 19  WE PROMISE ONE ANOTHER/ poems from an Asian war -- 
                            selected & printed by Don Luce+ J.C. Schafer & Jacquelyn Chagnon .

             

                 ------------
             *    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      (Don Luce's note)