Each morning meets another morning.

"White Cranes Flying Home" is the title of a poem and also the title of a poetry collection by poet Nguyen Ngoc Tung, recently published by the Vietnam Writers Association Publishing House in early 2026, following 16 poetry collections and 3 epic poems published previously between 2003 and 2026.

Evoking the feeling of "returning to one's roots," or in other words, the feeling of "returning to one's roots" carries a guiding and leading value... "The White Crane Flies Home" takes readers back to each milestone of the primordial history with: "The crane sets foot on the peak of the Red River Delta / The White Crane River confluence / The ancient land where dragons and elephants bow / Nghia Linh Mountain, the origin of our roots / King Hung founded the Van Lang Kingdom / The descendants of Lac and Hong went to the forests and seas..."

That land, known as the "Land Where White Cranes Fly," is naturally deeply connected to the ancestral homeland and its traditions, as if it were blood and flesh. Within this realm of tradition, one cannot overlook the names of the villages, including the craft villages – the core and lifeblood of Vietnamese rural life for generations. These are "Cánh Pottery, the Soul of the Homeland," "Thùng Village," "Vòng Market," "Returning to the Woodworking Village," "Poetic Field," and "Remembering the Drifting 'Old Man'," each with its own distinctive features conveyed through simple, rustic language rich in folklore: "My boat docks at the riverbank / If you want to cross, I'll build a rainbow bridge to visit / We love each other for a lifetime / Listening to the pottery being fired and singing songs of a hundred years," "Husband with a handle, wife with a hammer, feet climbing / Loving each other, we follow each other home to plow and cultivate / Regardless of the hammer and anvil / The more it is tempered in the fire, the stronger the steel becomes... / Thùng Village, beautiful land, beautiful people / The sound of the anvil and hammer has become our homeland," "I go to sell fresh green produce / I go to find the sweet fragrance of the homeland," and "The betel nut reminds me of the betel leaf / Buying melons reminds me of the small shrimp from Rưng Pond," "I live in Vĩnh Đoài, you live in Vĩnh Đông / The woodworking villages share the same waterfront / On that side, the sound of the hoe, on this side, the sound of the chisel / Fragrant wood beckons us home," and "I travel across a hundred mountains. " "A thousand rivers / Still hear the night heron calling in the misty fields / Half a lifetime of repayment, yet still not finished / I owe the fields a deep poetic debt," "Floating trees are the path home / So many leaves, so many seasons sheltering human fate" ...

In this collection of poems, "Shrimp with Oil" is a memorable poem and a success for the author. The poem is a simple song about the fate of a rural mother: toil, silence, and sacrifice to the point of exhaustion. The images of shrimp with oil, the water spinach, and the crane intertwine, creating a space of memories of a poor countryside steeped in the bitterness of tears. The poem concludes with a silent loss, transforming the simple bowl of cucumber soup into a symbol of undying maternal love. In "Shrimp with Oil," there are verses that are beautifully and profoundly written about the fate of a mother and her lifelong devotion to her children: "My mother endures sun and rain / She lets go of salty tears and then holds on to bitter ones" and "The bitterness withers her heart / The deliciousness and sweetness she awaits her child's return..."

Following "Shrimp Oil," we must mention "Old Path," "The Day of Return," and "Every Morning Meets Another Morning," evoking memories and nostalgia for the past that are deeply ingrained in the subconscious: "The haystacks of a bygone era / The empty garden corner where buffaloes sit chewing on the moon / The rake remembers the hoe / The thin shoulders still remember the carrying poles morning and evening," "The lime pot turns to stone, lonely / Where are the three Kitchen Gods now? / Hands stirring the oil lamp wick / Missing father, remembering mother enduring the sun and rain," and "The subsidy era seems like yesterday / Dusty city, nameless streets, houses without numbers / That 'Vồ' market, those difficult days / The hoarse sound of the train whistle slowly at the station" ... Having gone through hardships and difficulties like the ups and downs of life, the author always optimistically recognizes that "Our homeland lights up seasons of joy." This change has made the author so happy that: "Every day the rhythm of life is renewed / Every morning meets another morning."

Along every "mile of writing," every "mile of poetry" across the country, upon arriving in Ha Giang —the familiar frontier land of the Fatherland—Nguyen Ngoc Tung created "Portrait of Stone." The poem contains lines that are unforgettable: "Father built a house with earthen walls / Stones carried together to form a fence and hedge," "Mother's milk nourished me / Fragrant with the smell of men men (a type of fermented corn porridge) / Making my cheeks rosy, my skin white / The sparkling smile of Ha Giang" ... These masterful verses express the sentiment, the passion, and capture the "essence" of Ha Giang in a unique way only Nguyen Ngoc Tung possesses.

Source: https://hanoimoi.vn/moi-ban-mai-gap-mot-ban-mai-735430.html