A Vietnamese Poetry in English Translation Explicated - Blossom Season

Blossom Season

By Y Phuong
Translated by Nhue Anh dich
Explicated by Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyay

Season of blossom

Season of women

Ruddy faces

Running like a wind to the mountains, carrying their husbands on their shoulders

Season of Blossom

Season of men

Becoming tired out like a gloomy shirt

Passing by, sleepily leaning on fences

The poem juxtaposes two contrasting visions. In the first stanza a season of blossom brings forth a time when it is the women who are the protagonists. The poet finds healthy red faces running like the wind to the mountain, carrying their husbands on their shoulders. The mountain seems to stand for perennial happiness that is not subject to decay or death. The second stanza depicts another season of blossom when it is the men who are the protagonists.  While the women are ruddy faces the men are like gloomy shirts.  In another words they are mere apparitions or ghosts whose shirts are only visible. While the women run like the wind to the mountains the men pass by sleepily leaning on fences. In other words there is death in life in the figures of men whereas there is life in death in  the ruddy faces of women. The latter are alight with zest for love and life. They are  carrying their husbands on their shoulders. Here family is a legitimation. The women are observing their family responsibility with love. They were looking forward to transport their loved ones to the heights of peace and happiness. But the men are unimaginative. They have no vision. They have no goal in life. They stand for thanatos. They are too self centred and too tired to think of their fellow men. Thus while women stand for the Eros or love and energy indomitable, the men stand for Thanatos or matter , dead and inert.  

This is a poem that impels us to look upon life, men and women from an emergent point of view.