A Vietnamese Poetry in English Translation Explicated - Dalat -- Once with the Moon

Dalat – Once with the Moon
By Nguyen Duy Nhue

Translated by Nguyen Do and Paul Hoover
Explicated by Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyay

A Magical moon flickers in white fog

Whose wind flickers over the hills ?

The crunching sound of horse’s hoofs beat on the silent slope

A pine leaf faintly and dimly falls

You light a camp stove with tiny pieces of dry wood

The flame covers the emptiness between you and me

I avoid looking at you; you avoid looking at me

While our little teapot mumbles as it boils

But finally nothing is avoided

In their heart these wooden coals burn at their reddest

But their flame pretends to glimmer

And the odor of sap follows the drifting smoke.

The poem opens with a magical moon. Magical moon implies a moon that is different from the silver orb which we are wont to see in the blue deep. One wonders why it becomes magical moon. The next word- flickers- seems to resolve the problem. It is though very much the moon we are used to see in the nocturnal sky yet unlike the moon of every night it flickers. The moon is the lamp of the nightly sky. It gives light steadily but right now the moon light flickers or shines unsteadily. This makes the moon magical. One wonders whether the moon has been transformed into a magical one and whether the moon exerts some charm upon the world. Surely the moon of the poem does not shine in a clear sky. It flickers in white fog. In other words the moon could be at its full and yet it looks magical and different as because it shines from behind white fog. The English romantic poet par excellence Coleridge portrays a similar moon shining from behind a thin grey cloud-let that makes the moon both small and dull. Thus an eerie atmosphere is created. But here the moon shines behind a white fog. That is, the moon hides itself in a veil of light. It seems that truth is hidden in a veil of light. What does the veil stand for ? it might be the light of thought. The moon could be the poet hidden in the light of thought. But the poet’s self despite hiding himself in the light of thought shines forth in flickers penetrating the white fog. That is the paradox. Despite the fact that a poet hides himself behind a poem the poem could reveal the poet in flashes. This is an aesthetics. Roland Barths in his famous article “The Death ofan Author’ announces that the author is dead. His illustrious predecessors Nietzsche announced earlier that the God is dead but Nguen Duy seems to argue that just as we do not espy god in the creation and still just as god reveals himself in the creation similarly although we do not see the poet in a poem the poem betrays now and then in flickers the real self of the poet. Indeed a magical moon flickers in white fog. But how come the light of the moon becomes unsteady? The light of a lamp flickers when it is unsteady. What makes the light of the lamp unsteady? It is because of the wind that the lamp becomes unsteady. If the wind sometimes is strong and sometimes weak the light of the lamp becomes unsteady. And one might say the wind itself flickers. This is a case of metonymy. The poet asks – whose wind flickers over the hills?  While the magical moon flickers in white fog in the sky. Away over the hills the wind flickers. Thus here is  a nocturnal landscapes flickering in the moon. And therefrom we find the winds over the hills. Thus an un- earthy atmosphere is created. The flicker of the moon light and the flicker of the wind seem to be in unison with the crunching sound of horses hoofs that beat on the silent slopes. In other words, there are beats of lights and there are beats of sounds. Each beat of the sound underlies the silence. Each flicker of light could underline darkness. Thus the light and sound of the scene underlies the darkness and silence lurking behind. The fourth line of the poem reads – a pine leaf faintly and dimly falls. The fricative f here recurs only to remind us of the dryness or saplessness of the leaf. We can as it were hear the fall of a single sapless leaf. The sound only enhances the silence all about.

The next stanza begins with – you light a camp stove with tiny pieces of dry wood. The line suggests the existence of a camp in the afore described magical environment. The magical environment is being observed  and felt by the poet who is staying in a camp in the magical environment. And the poet is not alone in the camp because he addresses someone who lights a stove with tiny pieces of dry wood. The cooking gadgets do not exist in a camp. This shows that the poet is away from the comforts of his hearth and home. The stove is alighted and the flame covers the emptiness between the poet and his company. Earlier the stove was not alight. So even though the poet and his company were seated near each other both of them were left alone given to their thoughts. But now that the stove is alight the flame bridges the gap between the poet and his friend. The flame in other words is a substitute for language that connects two discrete humans. Each others face could be descried in the light of the flame. But the poet avoids looking at his friend despite the fact that right now he could see his friends face. Why does the poet avoid to look at his friend? May be the friends face might reveal some impending disaster which the poet seeks to avoid to look upon. In other words, we the readers of the poem are afraid that some ominous incident is in the offing. The poet avoids looking at  the friend and the friend avoids looking at the poet while the teapot mumbles as it boils. The mumble of the teapot only enhances the silence which pervades the whole atmosphere.

         The third stanza seems to clinch up the drama which informs us that finally nothing is avoided. In their heart the wooden coals burn . But their flames pretend to glimmer. It reminds us of the flicker of the magical moon in white fog and the flickers of the wind over the hills. This refrain of the imagery of flicker adds to the poem a mold of music. The poet adds that the odour of sap follows  the drift in smoke. The Nyaya philosophers of ancient India observes that we could infer that the hill is afire observing a smoke surrounding a hill. The hush-hush atmosphere in the camp  amidst the flicker of moon light and the sound of the horses hoofs from afar seem to suggest a situation where a tremendous fearsome disaster or encounter might take place . The poem is a triumph of symbolic art. It evokes a sense of fear and an occult silence in the hearts of the readers.