09:19, 03/09/2023
The Central Highlands is often known to have only two seasons: dry season and rainy season. And autumn? The Central Highlands’ autumn is discreet, the season of consciousness, the season of listening to the damp rain covering the hazy mist, the season of feeling the stirring changes of the mountains, forests, grass and trees, a season often only discovered by those who wander in search of the vagueness of time…
“In the Central Highlands, I thought the autumn was bad/ so in the afternoon I carried the whole pine tree root away/ climbing and wrapping it around the house, creating an illusion/ a pink bow hanging in the silence” (The Pink Bow Hanging in the Silence – Van Cong Hung). In the Central Highlands, it seems like everything has slowed down a bit, become a bit more lethargic, a bit absent-minded. “The rains seem to have begun to tire/ the street corners are a bit less noisy/ you are like an oversleeping noon/ autumn is hesitant, half staying and half going” (September in Pleiku – Van Cong Hung). And at that time, “Sleep is also shallow/ sighs are also slow” (August in a daze). The poet from Hue, who has been attached to the mountain town of Pleiku for almost his entire life, one day discovered that “No one has yet been able to distinguish the scent of Pleiku’s milk flower from other places/ it has already faded” (The milk flower blooms).
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| Poet Le Vinh Tai (left cover) performs the long poem “Breaking Warm Rain” with artists. Photo: Mai Sao |
The Central Highlands autumn in Le Vinh Tai's poetry breaks out, awakens, and flows endlessly "early autumn, yellow wild chrysanthemums bloom/ the homeland breaks out in so much warm rain/ warm rain covers the body with a scarlet-colored scarf/ and white flower embroidery thread/ oh the sun brings out the yellow pistils" (Epic poem "Breaking Out Warm Rain"). The epic quality of the ups and downs of the poet from Ban Me is guided by the autumn of consciousness "oh Central Highlands/ the leaves are still green in the red leaf verse/ the day is sunny and windy/ the yellow falls"... "oh forest/ oh forest/ the long house windows open to the green world/ the other side of the Serepok river is green/ both sides of the red dirt road are green/ mother's dinner is gently filled with smoke/ the sound of the trumpet is faintly green/... the day father asked to cut down the trees to make K'pan/ the day father burned the fields to bring rice home for mother/ the day your family's kitchen fire was so warm/ the day your family's wine jars seemed to/ flow into your blood and eyes, stirring/ the sound of T'langput penetrated your chest/ do you still remember me" (Breaking out warm rain).
“Today the green color calls autumn back/ like I call you/ I can never keep you/ I only have a still life painting/ painting yellow flowers/ Yen Co has fallen somewhere/ and you are gone” (Hoa Yen Co – Le Vinh Tai). Yen Co is a flower that the poet named himself – a name, a splendid and poignant story. As in a short story of the same name, he told the story of Yen Co flower that one night shed all its leaves and flowers to form a blanket to cover the cold for her lover, until she herself became naked and shivering from the cold. Yen Co flower quickly passed through autumn, “just waiting for winter to come to shed its leaves to warm her lover. Even when spring forgot it, never to return, the tree still stood waiting, and the flower was silent”. Yen Co flower, a flower as exquisite and fragile as silk, entangled the poet’s soul.
Without naming the season, Dinh Thi Nhu Thuy's poems are always filled with the feeling of autumn - rain. It is the moment of sudden change of season "Early morning. It is the dry season. The dry season. The watering season. Suddenly the weather suddenly changes. And the frost has passed. And the cold rain this morning. The fine rain. The rain is not enough to wet the ground. Not enough to wash away. Just enough to wet the blooming coffee flowers. Just that much. Enough to shake" (Morning. Opening the door to look at the sky...). Let everything gradually become vague "The brick yard is covered with green moss. The wooden chair is full of wood ear mushrooms. Vague and romantic. A day not so long ago. But we cannot call each other back" (Then the memory gradually cools).
And here is the wild sunflower, blooming in late autumn, passionately "turning towards the light, towards the sky, overwhelmed and tirelessly reaching high, spreading its arms and nurturing buds, innocently and waiting... Wild sunflower, wild sunflower, wild sunflower, always golden yellow, bright yellow, burning yellow, passionately and endlessly glowing on the green background of leaves and the red background of basalt soil..." (Writing for wild sunflower - Dinh Thi Nhu Thuy).
Autumn in the Central Highlands - the birth season of poetic souls.
Tran Tuan
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