The hills are covered with purple rhododendrons…

I love myrtle flowers, and I also love Huu Loan's poem "The Purple Color of Myrtle Flowers." That love stems from childhood memories, from the vast, endless myrtle hills of my hometown where I used to run and play whenever I followed my mother across the river to gather firewood during the summer.

Calling it "myrtle hill" is probably inaccurate: the entire hill is covered with other trees, only a flat area on the northern slope is covered entirely with myrtle bushes. The myrtle bushes are as tall as a person's head, with oval-shaped leaves growing opposite each other. The veins run downwards, dividing the leaves into many plump, well-defined "segments"!

The sim flower is a pale purple tinged with pink, not as deep purple as the mua flower. Yet, during the peak blooming season, viewed from afar, the sim flower fields on the hillside are still a mesmerizing shade of purple, a captivating memory from my childhood. It's beautiful, but that delicate beauty only truly haunts me now that I'm older; as a child, my main motivation for climbing and wading through the sim flower fields was... to eat them.

The sim fruit is small, about the size of a fingertip, egg-shaped, with a "cap" at one end—a remnant of the calyx—just like the ears on a mangosteen. Ripe sim fruit is purplish-pink, while fully ripened it turns dark black, covered in fine hairs, and containing countless tiny seeds inside. It tastes sweet, not intensely sweet. Yet it's delicious—the deliciousness of a "gift from nature" bestowed by the mountains and forests, without costing any money…

Illustrative image

Every day I got to go gather firewood, I would pester my mother to take me to the myrtle hill. Because she loved me, she indulged me, but gathering firewood on the myrtle hill was difficult because there wasn't much, it was a long walk, and she had to keep an eye on me – it was very hard! That time, I was so engrossed in picking ripe myrtle berries that I filled my hat and didn't hear my mother calling. It caused my mother to run after me, abandoning her torch and firewood, and she tripped over a sharp rock, cutting her foot and bleeding profusely! I felt sorry for my mother, but I couldn't give up my love for myrtle berries. However, in subsequent times, I was a little "smarter," just sneaking through the bushes and hedges while occasionally calling out, "Mom, Mom!" Only when I heard her reply "Yes?" did I feel safe enough to continue gathering…

Every time I finished gathering the dry firewood that my mother "assigned" me to go for a walk in the myrtle grove, the first thing I did was... eat. I would eat until the myrtle sap stained my tongue and teeth purple, making it impossible to eat any more, then I would pick the berries, wrap them in a sack and put them in my hat to take home. That "blessing" naturally became a treasure when it reached the lowlands. When we divided it, the youngest child would get the biggest share, and the rest would go to my older siblings and close friends who had never experienced the forest and mountains. Of course, after eating, everyone's eyes lit up with joy, dreaming of one day going up the hill to pick myrtle berries to their heart's content.

After graduating from teacher training college, I volunteered to teach in the highlands: a semi-mountainous region where rolling hills covered with myrtle bushes stretched along the newly opened mountain road. During the myrtle flowering season, I honestly wanted to spend my days and nights wandering along the road, feasting my eyes on the vast expanse of purple. The myrtle flowers in the highlands thrived in the fertile soil. The myrtle berries were also round, large, and plump, unlike the small berries of the myrtle trees on the barren hills of my childhood. I could eat as much as I wanted because my students would pick them and bring them to me every day.

Despite everything being so complete, I still occasionally yearn for that hill of myrtle blossoms from my childhood. I still wander back through memories in fleeting dreams filled with the purple hues of the myrtle flowers. Is it because the myrtle blossoms, with their faithful purple color, make those who leave always remember them – even after so long, so very long since they returned?

Y Nguyen

Source: https://baodaklak.vn/van-hoa-du-lich-van-hoc-nghe-thuat/van-hoc-nghe-thuat/202606/nhung-doi-sim-tim-53e404c/