March, missing my hometown

Portrait of Dang Ngoc Khoa. Sketch: Xuan Vinh

1. For several years now, I have not attended the death anniversary of an old friend, but I still have not forgotten him. I remember Hoang Tu Thien's gentle features and his reflections on the meaning of life, in his deep love for his homeland, in the poem "March City" from nearly 50 years ago....

And 15 years ago, Dang Ngoc Khoa and his friends organized a memorial service for Quang poet Hoang Tu Thien. Before that, the poetry collection “Crescent Moon” consisting of his flesh and blood poems was also published. More than a year later, Khoa himself passed away! But what he left behind for this life, for the working people, is priceless!

And what did the relatives do for Thien and Khoa? To look after the deceased. That is also the existence of human beings: when we know how to live humanely, life is just the “loss” of the finite body. What people have given to life will merge into the eternal stream of life, even though it is just a “Shadow”, as Thien once contemplated: “ Flickering/ the shadow/ Turn off the light/ lose the shadow/ I find/ find myself ”.

And even though there are times when a scent is forgotten or lost amidst the dust of the city, the eternal sunlight still shines on human lives. Therefore, history is the sweat and blood of countless people. History is the river with all the silent scenes appearing on both banks, with countless nameless, vague dots of people... And, time is also the silent sounds, beneath the brilliant drum beats...

The program "Charming Vietnam" commemorates poet Dang Ngoc Khoa. Photo: collected

2. I remember another friend, Nguyen Trung Binh. Around 1995, in the early days of coming to the South, Binh brought me a manuscript of a poetry collection, wanting to print it but... not knowing how! The poem was good, so I "foolishly" borrowed money to help Binh publish it. I sent a long poem, about 150 lines (also the title of the poetry collection - Poetry of a Brown-shaped child) to Tran Nhat Thu, asking to print a passage.

Unexpectedly, Tran Nhat Thu printed the entire poem, occupying almost all the poetry space of the Ho Chi Minh City Literature and Arts weekly newspaper. A few coffee shop tables were surprised: What a great poem! But why is the author's name so strange? That's how Nguyen Trung Binh "debuted" in Saigon!

Then Binh also left, about half a month after Dang Ngoc Khoa. Leaving was returning, as Binh himself had predicted: the brown figure had become a memory/ memories like thorns in the flesh/ memories of the brown figure/ the child's departure had returned/ empty-handed/ the brown figure.

During those years, life was still full of hardships; but friendship never dried up. Or perhaps the opposite is more correct. Like Hoang Minh Nhan's heart towards his friend: How could I have ten silver coins/ to give you a green cup this afternoon/ I reached out to pick the blue sky/ the cup my heart will always save.

Hoang Minh Nhan and I first met around October 1975, when he and Nguyen Chi Trung went to Hue to “gather” Quang people… who had lost their way during the war and return to their homeland. Hoang Minh Nhan, with the book “Heavy bundle of love” (about the poet Thu Bon), which he gave me, on one of my visits to Da Nang …

3. The homeland is stepping out of old ways of thinking to break out in the hope of a new era. Like the bridges spanning wide rivers in the past - symbolizing the connection from hand to hand. But life always requires reaching out to other invisible bridges. Life still does not stop. But not everything will be lost. Because, in oblivion, there is always nostalgia.

Nostalgia exists everywhere. Like distant smiles. Like silent sparkles named crystals of history. Like traces left on this land, after overcoming so much suffering. Like Dang Ngoc Khoa's poems, painful but still full of faith in life: There will be a day like that, my heart/ Before death, why should I be afraid/ My heart is given to my child's chest/ No one's heart stops beating in this world.

The faces of friends return one by one, in memory. There is a smile. There is silence. There is even a faded figure. All, just a passing moment. Vague, but so real!

Behind it all, your friends are still here, like quiet smiles. And, behind those smiles, is the sound of time, like memories, like longing, like never fading…

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/thang-ba-nho-ban-que-nha-3151697.html