Oh… mother's lullaby

I was born and raised in a rural area, the lullabies my mother sang as a child have permeated my blood and flesh over time. “Au oi, my child, sleep soundly/Your father has not returned from plowing the deep fields/Mother is still busy with work/Rice and soup have not been cooked, rice has not been sifted”… Not only the work of parents and neighbors with many rustic images, close to life such as storks, herons, and beggar fish… full of fairy tale colors, but also the love associated with the golden rice fields gently swaying in the afternoon wind or the river with one side eroding and the other silting up, the curved roof of the communal house next to the ancient banyan tree… all have lulled me to sleep.

Photo: CONG THI

Like many other mothers, whether in the hot summer afternoon with the gentle south wind or in the cold winter day, my mother is always by my side with her passionate lullabies, sometimes gentle, sometimes leisurely. “Father’s merit is like Thai Son mountain/Mother’s love is like the water flowing from the source/Wholeheartedly worship mother and respect father/To fulfill filial piety is the child’s duty” - not only using the lullaby to teach children about filial piety but also about being a human being. Through it, countless times my mother sent me: “Many red silk covers the mirror/People in the same country must love each other”, or “Gourd, love squash/Although different species, they are on the same trellis”.

I gradually grew up, and then my younger siblings were born one after another. Even though poverty and hardship made my mother busy with worries, with her emaciated body, she still sweetly sang lullabies to the rhythm of the cradle. Even during the fierce war years, lying at the mouth of the bunker under the bamboo grove, when bombs and bullets exploded all around, my youngest sibling could not sleep, but my mother's words were still gentle: "Au oi... The stork, the heron, the farmer/Why are you trampling on my rice, stork?"

Famous musician Phan Huynh Dieu, when talking about his compositions, once confided: “My mother raised me with lullabies. I thank her lullabies a thousand times. Through the sweet, gentle folk songs from the time I was a baby, she gave me a sensitive soul, trained me to be a good person, knowing how to give life songs of love!” Poet Xuan Quynh in the poem “Mother's Lullaby” has a passage: “And when I go to class/The lullaby at the school gate/The lullaby becomes a blade of grass/Welcoming my footsteps/Tomorrow when I grow up/On the long road with the harsh sun/The lullaby is a cool shade/When I climb the deep mountains/The lullaby is also bumpy/When I go to the vast ocean/The lullaby becomes immense”.

For us, as the years have passed, our mother’s lullabies have been like a source that has nourished our souls, become provisions, become lessons that help us stand firm in the face of many storms in the long journey of life. Through the lullabies from the past, we know how to love ourselves, love others, teach our children to cherish every grain of rice and potato, to follow the right path, to cherish the human values that society and the community cultivate…

“Every afternoon I stand in the back garden/Looking back at my mother’s hometown, my heart aches all afternoon.” My mother is no longer here. We, her children, have now become grandparents. The lullabies we used to sing to our children have now been used to sing to our grandchildren, and they all begin with the two words: Au oi…!

HOANG NHAT TUYEN

Source: https://baokhanhhoa.vn/van-hoa/202505/au-oi-cau-hat-me-ru-f295b31/