WE PROMISE ONE ANOTHER / NGUYỄN DU / Don Luce introduced ...

We promise one another /
poems form an Asian war .
                                                CALLING THE WANDERING SOUL
                                                           by  NGUYỄN DU

  American  military  and political  leaders could also have profited  from reading Nguyễn Du 's
 ' Calling the Wandering Souls ' .   It would have help them to realize the intense alienation that refugee programs cause .   No people like to be moved from their homes ,  but for Vietnamese it is specially painful ,  for to leave  their homes ,  but  for Vietnamese it is especially painful , for to leave their homes means  also to leaves the graves of one's ancestors .   Vietnamese believes that it is important to be close to the graves of one's ancestors .   Vietnamese believe that it is important to be close to the graves of their ancestors ,  so they can tend to them and offer prayers that their dead realtives  may rest in peace .   People  who die before they have a family and have no one to look after them in dead and have no fixed grave are objects of great pity .   These  are the unfortunat
" wandering souls " that Nguyễn Du calls to in his  poem .   In Việtnam where so many  people die young with no families of their own , where one third of the population has been  moved at last once ,  and where soi many  families of their own , where one third of the population has been moved at least once ,   and where so many families have been split up , there are many wandering souls,  and the Vietnamese worry about them and pray for them as Nguyễn Du did so many years ago .
   (    Don Luce 's note )

                                  In this seventh month the rain is endless ,        
                                  The cold prenetates into the dry bones
                                  The autumn evening is mournful and sad ,
                                  The reeds are livid , the leaves of plane-trees withered ,
                                  In the twilight the birch trees are drooping ,
                                  The pear trees shrouded in mist .
                                  Whoever  can remain unmoved ?
                                   If the world of the living is so sad ,
                                   Much sadder must be the world of the dead .

                                   In the utter darkness of the eternal night ,
                                   Appear ,  lost souls , like will-o'-wisps ,  reveal your presence !
                                   O poor being ,  creatures of the ten categories ,
                                   Your abandoned souls are roaming in strange lands !
                                   No incense is burning for you ...

                                   There were those who pursued riches
                                   Who lost appetite and sleep ,
                                    With  no children or relations to inherit their fortunes ,
                                   With no ones to hear their last words .
                                    Riches  dissipate like passing clouds .
                                    Living they had their hands full of gold ,
                                    Departing from this  world , they could take with them
                                                                                                        no single coin .

                                     At their funeral ,  hired mourners feigned sorrow ,
                                     The cheap coofins were hastily taken away in the night .
                                     Losts souls ,  they roam the flooded fields
                                     Without any offering of incense or water .

                                    There were those who sought academic honours leading to high places  ,
                                    To the cities they went , forsaking their native land  .                              
                                    But do arts and letters always bring success ?
                                    One day they lay sick in a roadside inn,
                                    Without the love and care of their families .
                                    Dead ,  they  were hastily buried ,
                                    Far from the dear ones ans the ancestral land .

                                     In an abandoned burying ground they lie ,
                                     Their  lonely souls wander ,
                                    Without being honoured by any offerings .

                                    There were those who sailed on rivers and oceans ,
                                    To remote places , blown by the East wind ,
                                    A storm midway sent their ships to the boottom 
                                    And they dissappeared into the sharks' bellies .

                                      They were those who engaged in trade  ,
                                     Their shoulders aching under the load of merchandise .
                                     They died of exposure , far from home ,
                                     Their souls now wander along the roads .

                                    There were those who , comscripted ,
                                    Left their families for the service of the king .
                                    Taken the distant lands ,
                                    They lived  life of privations and sufferings .
                                                                                                                                                  
                                         In war - time human lives  are so cheap  ,
                                         With sword and fire sowing death .
                                         Their roaming will - o' -the wisps ,  apparitions
                                                                                     of their lost souls .
                                         Make the scene still more mournful .

                                         There  were those who spoiled their lives ,
                                         Selling their charms and smiles .
                                         Abandoned by all when youth was gone ,
                                         They had no husbands or children to support them .

                                         In their life nothing but humiliation and sufferings ,
                                         After their death ,  only offerings from kind strangers.
                                         Pitiable was the fate of these women ,
                                         Such was their destiny ,  no one knows the reason .

                                         There are those who spent their lives begging ,
                                         Sleeping under bridges ,  on the ground .
                                         Yet ,  like others ,  they were human beings .
                                         They lived on charity and now liein the roadside graves .

                                         There were those victims on injustice ,
                                         Year after year they languished in jail .
                                         Dead ,  they were buried somewhere near the prison wall .
                                         For their shroud ,  only a tatterred rush mat .
                                         Will their innocence ever be revealed ?

                                         There were the babies born in an unaususpicious  hour
                                         Who lived   only  a few moments .
                                         There 's nobody now to carry them in her arms  ,
                                         And heart-rending are their feeble cries .

                                         There  were those who lives were cut short
                                          By drowning ,  falling from trees or into wells ,
                                         Those who were washed  away by strong currents ,
                                         Who perished in fires  ,
                                         Who were devoured by wolves or crushed by elephants .
                                         There were those who gave birth to still -born babies ,
                                         Who died from miscarriage , or from severe wounds .

                                          Struck by fate midway on the path of life ,
                                         They followed  each other to the other world ,
                                         Each with a different destiny .
                                         Where are they now , those lost souls ?
                                          Somewhere they are hiding , maybe among the trees ,
                                         Maybe in the grass or in the bushes ,
                                          Or they are wandering aimlessly
                                          By the roadside inns or under bridges ,
                                          Or they seek shelter in temples and pagodas .
                                          Maybe they are hauting markets or riverbanks
                                          Or the barren lands ,  the knolls or the bamboo groves .
                                          Misery was their lot in lifetime ,
                                          In the cold their corpses are now withering .

                                           Year after year exposed to wind and rain ,
                                           On the cold ground they lie , sighing .
                                           Ay dawn ,  when the cock crows they flee ,
                                           Only to grope their way again when night comes .
                                               []

                                             NGUYỄN DU
 
                                            ( from   WE PROMISE ONE ANOTHER -  poems from  an Asian war -                                                   selected, translated and introduced by DON LUCE , JOHN
                                                   C. SHAFER  & JACQUELYN CHAGNON  -  Published by
                                                    The Indochina Moblie Education Projct -   Washington , D.C 1971)
                                        (  p  10  - 14 ) .