Thứ Sáu, 9 tháng 3, 2012

TWO WORLDS OF LUU TRONG LU / Don Luce introduced ...

We promise one another /
poems from an Asian war  .

               T w o    W o r l d s   o f    L ư u    T r ọ n g    L ư
                                           poems by Lưu Trọng  Lư 
                                  DON   LUCE   translated  ,  introduced .

         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 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 imperalism against Vietnam  in the melancholy   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 your Mother Land  ,
                                                  To leave for her children ,
                                                  The heritage of your Mother  Land ,
                                                  The sad country of Vietnam

             But there were interludes of peace  --   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 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 Vietnam ,  the South at least ,   with its  " sunset trips "  bars that crowd around,, the American  installations ,  blaring out of 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 Autumn " ,  are  still very popular .   They spaek 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 for Vietnamese  the heartache  of peaceful life have assumed an aura of luxury as sweet as its joys ,  for the larger tragedy of the war ahd deprived them of both for  so long .

                Some of Lưu Trọng Lư' s recent poems also give expression to the timeless spects of the Vietnamese experience .    In the following stanza from a poem written in 1965 ,  an old man continues to plow his land in th midst of destruction :

                                       Beside the bomb carter ,  still smoking  ,
                                       And old uncle already eighty
                                       Plow agile as a youth  .
                                       The aged back presses deep to the heart of the earth ,
                                       Sliver 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 Vietnam ,  but he along with many other famous poets of the pre-war period now lives in the North .
He writes of different kinds of struggles now and manyu of his recent poems like
" Women of the South " ,  the fourth poems  of this  section ,  describe the courage of fighters who have dared to challenge the military might of the U. S. and have  succeeded in shaking " the brass ans steel  of the White House " .
( DON LUCE  note 's )  


                                        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 heart of lonely women .

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

                                           - - 1939   

                                                                 WHITE CLOUDS  

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

                                                                   And there are a few young
                                                                   Who know sadness deep and blue
                                                                    But in whose harts bloom still
                                                                    Dreams red or 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 your 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 quiclky ;
                                                          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
              -------
              * Lưu Trọng  Lư ( b. 1912 - d. 1991 )


                    WOMEN IN THE SOUTH

                                    Trần thị Lý *

                      Long hair  ,  hair of a young mother
                      Washed in the water of Thu Bồn  ,
                      Adoring your body ,  wounded in a hundred  placs  ,
                      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 wrapped 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 the assault  you command a hundred squads ,
                        Night returns ,  you sit mending fighters 's clothes ,
                        Woman general of the South ,  descended from Trắc and Nhị  **
                        You' ve shaken the brass and steel  of the White House .

                                     - - 1966
                              poems by  LƯU TRỌNG LƯ

                        -----
                          *    Trần Thị Lý is a woman's as are the other headings of this poem .
                          **   Trưng Trắc & Trưng Nhị ,  the famous TRƯNG  sisters  who led
                                  Vietnamese  against the Chinese about 40   B.
                                     (  DON LUCE 's  notes   )

                                  ( from  WE PROMISE ONE ANOTHER - POEMS FROM AN ASIAN WAR
                                     Don Luce,  John C. Schafer  & Jacquelyn Chagnon   selected, translated and introduced .
                                     Published by  The Indochina Mobile Education Project ,  Washington , D.C. 1971 - p.  15 - 19 )
                     


            


                                      
              
                                                                                              

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