Homecoming Dreams
.
I saw in a dream
I came back to my grandmother’s village.
I was excited
To see the village bamboo hedge,
My grandmother with her shaky legs,
Leaning on a bamboo stick beside the mossy wall.
She sobbed over the long separation,
And asked me why I have left the country so long.There was no big change in my maternal village
The spring water remained clear when the leaves fell in the autumnal evenings.
The cicadas sang melancholically in the estival evenings.
Multicolored flowers welcomed the Spring coming.
The frosty Winter said ‘adios’ to a man leaving the worldLeaving my maternal village for my paternal origin,
I saw my parents in my childhood home.
My parents were very senile.
They walked with the help of the bamboo sticks
While their sight was very weak.
My brother and sister welcomed me in bursting into tears.
In the absolute silence tears were words.My father hatched his unrevealed hopes,
Waiting for the coming of our country’s dawn.
That day our people would know the sap of their life.
All the rivers, mountains would dance
At the rhyme of the bronze drums.
All the country’s paths
Would be covered with Happiness Flowers.
The Peace songs would resound
In all the country’s villages and hamlets..
David Lan Pham, F.A.B.I.
