Feb 01 2008
Maximum Consternation…
Saigon in the Emergency
After enough time had passed and memory receded and settled, the name itself became a prayer, coded like all prayer to go past the extremes of petition and gratitude: Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam, say again, until the word lost all its old load of pain, pleasure, horror, guilt, nostalgia. Then and there, everyone was just trying to get through it, existential crunch, no atheists in foxholes like you wouldn’t believe. Even bitter refracted faith was better than none at all, like the black Marine I’d heard about during heavy shelling at Con Thien who said “Don’t worry, baby, God’ll think of something.” – Michael Herr, Dispatches
General Wes Morland is something of a poet — “maxium consternation” indeed. Anyway, I really like this series of posts you’re doing, remembering the Tet Offensive, and I hope you won’t mind if I offer my own contribution — a couple poems by the Vietnamese poet Nguyen Duy from his collection Distant Road.
Duy was a soldier in the communist North Vietnamese army from 1965 to 1975. He was attached to the signal corps, first maintaining communication lines and later as a war correspondent. Early in 1971, the army sent Duy back to college in Hanoi towards his degree in literature, but then he returned to the battle front to take part in the Quang Tri campaign. He wrote many war propaganda poems which were broadcast over the radio to inspire the Vietnamese people and soldiers. Here is one of those about the Quang Tri campaign. Keep in mind the very song-like music of the language is lost in the English translation. I had the good fortune to have a Vietnamese student when I taught Duy, and she was able to explain the exquisite nature of his play of sound to the rest of the class.
Square Sky
We won–our troop made a deep thrust.
The battle over, I return to rest
under the canvas roof–my square sky,
after the roar of incendiary bombs
my mind settles back in peace
recorvering its square home.
What joy equal to that minute of rest
opening the page of a letter
rocking beneath the jungle’s shade,
the round sky cut off by rains,
the square sky remaining unchanged,
in blue sunlight all four seasons,
the heart, the sun, the face of the sky,
love, the moon’s round face,
luminous at night.
Day is waking, night is sleep,
leaning in tandem stoop two roofs,
two distant home villages lost in mist,
here is my heart and here is
the wide mountain, the long river.
A square sky, a square–a tiny patch…
but enough to cover a thousand-day march.
After the war, Duy became one of the most famous poet laureates of Vietnam, publishing several books, sometimes criticizing the communist government but also supporting it. In 1995, he came to the United States to read at the Memorial in D.C. and also to meet in Boston with American poets who were also veterans of the Vietnam war. This is a poem he wrote to honor those American Veterans with whom he read.
Fire!
1.
We are poets, once each other’s match,
our good fortune, we never beame enemies.
Tonight we fire our cannons of poetry,
fire into the black night, shells of colorful flowers,
fire into each other, passion without borders,
fire into each other’s souls, melodies of kindness.
Fire! Fire! guns of poetry,
thunder! thunder! gunnders of words!
2.
Why didn’t we live like this when we were young,
when we learn to love each other, we’ve grown old.
Why was there a time when poetry was dead,
when patches of sky lay in ruins,
limbs lay splattered in blood,
hearts bruised with hatred,
and valleys were traps of tropical death?
Why the time of young men stolen,
the time of young women robbed,
the time of childhood singed in crackling fire?
Our lines lurch like lines of wounded soldiers,
our words stand headless, armless, legless, stirring like red ants.
When will all the wounds heal?
3.
This tear in our poetic soul should not be patched over,
this torn flesh continue to spurt new blood,
pain, hot and fresh, continue to pour on the page,
to remind us of a past,
to remind the world not to play games with blood.
Thunder! Thunder! Gunners of words,
guns of poetry,
pour into the black night shells of colorful flowers!
Fire!…