David Lan Pham

Friend

.

Since our childhood
We have known the war.
Walking on a deserted path in our village
We talked about our country.

When we grew up
We separated from each other.
Those talks entered our memory
As our childhood innocent ideals.

After twenty years of separation
You came back to the old place to see me.
That night we didn’t sleep.
We kept on talking about our country.

How sad our country was!
Perpetual bloodshed!
Abandoned rice fields!
Nothing but devastation!

Bombs burst in the villages
Bullets whistled through the cities.
There were sobs and lamentations
Even in the mountains.

You returned to your combat unit.
A few years after the war end
You came back to see me
In my old house.

You looked indecisive
Between war and peace?
Freedom and banishment?
Homeland and separation?

I kept silent without a word.
You had a cup of tea,
The echo of the past
Which couldn’t ever come back to us

Time flew by silently,
Suddenly I learned you died
On the edge of a jungle
By a spring on a rainy evening.

In the Yellow Spring
Did you know I left our ancestral land on a moonlit night?
I hope you never ask me
Why I left our country in its stormy days?

.

David Lan Pham, F.A.B.I.

Direct link: https://caidinh.com/Archiefpagina/Poezie/friend.html