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At Dawn
A water
spider
Is awakened
In the
middle of the lotus flower
Explication
Dawn comes
out from the tenebrous wombs of darkness and nothingness. It is the beginning
of a new day. Expansion and contraction
and expansion again is the order of the universe. Birth death and rebirth is
the order of existence. Creation destruction and creation is the way of the
world. And if night is deemed to be disappearance of the creation then dawn is
deemed to be the hour before the gods awake—the hour in between night and day
when nothingness fast disappears to make room
for fresh creation. The very line where the opposites meet where night
and day meet is the source of jouissance. It is at the hour of unspeakable
delight that there is the efflorescence of lotus . There is nothing as
beautiful as lotus in the pond-so goes a saying in a folk song of Vietnam. The pond could be the metaphor of the receptacle
of existence or the creation . Lotus is the national flower of Vietnam. Just as
the lotus has its roots in mud so Vietnam has raised its head from years of bloodshed where the soil mingled with
the blood of the patriotic Vietnamese
people became muddy.Vietnam has raised its proud and beautiful crown from that
muddy soil. Vietnam itself sprang from
the waters of the Red Riverjust as the lotus
rises from the waters.The world winning beauty of Vietnam both natural
and cultural can be likened to the beauty of the lotus flower only. Springing
from the mud under water the lotus rises above the surface of the waters to
bloom in its world winning beauty. It shows how the individuals as well as the nations now grovelling in the mud and
blood of the world today might rise up above the
sphere of sorrow enshrining in it the
deity of peace and disseminating love and peace. Creation however means
difference.Unless difference is born there cannot be any creation. There cannot
be the lotus alone. Unless there is the other a thing cannot exist. When the
poet finds the water spider he knows that the process of creation is there and
one wonders whether the poet rejoices in the difference and in the creation. Here
is a poet who simply revels in pencil sketches of what he observes and leaves
the same for the readers to explicate. And of course the readers can peruse the same from different standpoints.
Just as Nature is satisfied in creating the sights and sounds so is the poet
satisfied creating imagery made of words. Just as Nature has no comment on what
it creates so is the poet
reticent in his comments on what he
observes. Just as each spectator reads his own mind in Nature so does
the reader reads his own mind in the poems of Mai Vam Phan. The poet Mai Van
finds a water spider in a lotus. To find is to create. The poet creates a lotus
and a water spider in the lotus. It is the difference between the water spider
and the lotus that indicates creation. If the lotus stands for the beautiful
and elegant the water spider might stand for the ugly and the ignoble.It is
these opposites that make the creation possible.But if the beautiful has the
ugly at its heart or if ugliness implies the existence of the beautiful neither
ugliness nor the beautiful could be the
object of our love. If we ever love the dawn or creation we enjoy both the
beautiful and the ugly both the good and
the evil . Differences must be there. But we must not love this or hate that.We
must be as compassionate towards everything in the creation no matter whether
so called good or evil just as the poet
is all things both beautiful and ugly. He prayeth best who loveth best all things
both great and small. Vietnam might be likened to a lotus But there could be
some people who are not as openhearted as the lotus that welcomes the sun with petals unfurled. But no
one should be deprived of our love and compassion. But this is not all. The
lotus catches unsuspecting insects
for the spider to eat.. Hence may we take the liberty to infer that we are drawn to the beauties of the world
only to be eaten away by death.On another level
the beautiful exists in the world to support the ugly.And furthermore that thing or person is good who
does not hate the ugly. On the contrary the beautiful and the good always heip
others to survive be they good or ugly. The water spiders live in waters . But
they are found to float on leaves and sticks. The lotus here lets the spider to
rise above water and have a stay on the surface of waters. The Mississipian
culture looks upon the grand mother spider as the teacher who taught us how to
weave and spin. It was the spider which created the web of life. With the Mississipian
culture a water spider is a symbol of creative spirit. And when one espies
water spider in a lotus, one might interpret the same as the creative spirit awakened in the
lotus or the womb of the creation with the advent of dawn. A beautiful portrayal of dawn indeed
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