Mother, I do not want to kill my brothers.. poems from an Asian war

 we promise one another-   poems from an asian war-
 selected, presented by  DON LUCE and ...

               

                                                MOTHER,     I DO NOT WANT
                            TO KILL MY BROTHERS
            
                                                                                     But  I only want to be a husband
                                                                                     A father, with a wife, with a young son
                                                                                     Who know how to say the two words : Viêtnam
                                                                                                                        HOÀNG MINH NHÂN

             The Viêtnam War is very much a civil war.  As in  our Civil War, families are often split up with the members of the same family on different sides in the struggle.  And, as Miên  Đức Thắng sings in" Mother, Raise Me To Be a Prisoner", they do not want to kill their brothers.   Vietnamese dream of the day of" Thống Nhứt" or reunification when they can cross the Bến Hải River  at the parallel  and visit friends and relatives they have not seen or heard from in years.   They long for the day when the train will run again from Saigon to Hanoi, when Vietnam will be one nation from Cà Mau to the border of China.
                  Many American policy-makers have justified the continuing presence of American troops in Viêtnam on the grounds that there would be a " bloodbath" if they were to leave.   While it is impossible, of course, to predict what would happen in the event of a complete American withdrawal, the following poems are evidence that there are powerful bonds drawing the Vietnamese people together.   Like the author of the poem," Dead Bodies" , many Vietnamese are sick of the killing. " Nationalists " or " Communists", the poet says we have the same mother, the same black hair and yellow skin.   Why should we kill each other ?



                                                       A DREAM WHICH HAS WITHERED
                                                                            by Hoàng Minh Nhân *

                                                         OF THE SAME MOTHER 
                                                         The Vietnamese forbid fraticide with a saying,
                                                         " Let them fight outsiders if they are smart and strong,
                                                         but roosters of the same mother must not battle each other ." 

                                 [ This poem written for this children of the future,  for the
                                         generation whih will come after the wreckage.]


                           The day I grew up
                           Near my father, near my mother,
                           Near my sister, near my brother,
                           I only knew how to plant mulberry trees,
                           And cultivate rice ;
                           And then one day war by chance came
                           And trampled on my native village.
                           People in the name of the father land ,
                           People on the name of the man ,
                           People on the name of freedom ,
                           People in the name of happiness ,
                           Spy on each other, destroy each other ,
                           My father went up into the mountains ,
                           My brother waits and waits ,
                           My brother resists the war ,
                           My uncle is a nationalists ;
                           People teach me  how to kill, to cut off heads --
                           All in the name of love ,
                           Of philanthropy, of compassion ;
                           Fathers, mothers, wiwes, children, whole villages
                           Turn into strangers ,
                           and become ennemies ,
                           People teach me to bear grudges, to resent  ,
                           But I only want to be husaband ,
                           A father, with a wife, with a young son ,
                           Who knows how to say the two words :   Viêtnam --
                           From Cao Bằng to the seas of  Thailands ,
                           But my dream is a small trifle ,
                           Dim , uncertain, as the days pass . []

                           HOÀNG MINH NHÂN
                        
                          ( from   WE PROMISE ONE ANOTHER-               
                                selected, introduced by DON LUCE, JOHN C. SChAFER &
                                   JAQUELYN CHAGNON  -   published by the Indochina
                                    Mobile  Education Project, Washington, D. C. 1971  - p. 77-78 .  
  
------                 
 * poems of  a student  from Đà Nẵng ( Central of Vietnam).