Vietnamese Poetry
WHITE CANDLE
Composed by Nguyen Trong Tao
Translated into English by Nguyen Phan Que Mai
Explicated by Dr. Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyaya
You burn yourself to give me light
to give me warmth
to give me…
Tear drops drop, fall white
embrace your round body
your spine shortens
Early birds call me to wake
where have you disappeared?
only left a sea of tears
Suddenly echoing, the White Candle song from
childhood
“white candle turns into ash
Ash still gives light
Faded and far away love
Still reflects to shine…”
Explication
The addressee here is a white candle. The poet tells the white candle
that it is burning to give light to the poet. The candle might be the metaphor
for every bright object under the Sun. Even the Sun and the Moon and the stars
and the candles every living thing in the existence burns through metabolism
and catabolism. The whole existence, every atom of it is aburning and afire.
Hence there is as it were a cosmic conflagration. It is through burning that
the existence is manifest before our eyes. The candle being a metaphor of the
existence itself is the non self. The speaker or the addressor here is the
self. The self here seems to speak in a tone of gratitude to the non self or
the existence all about it. The self acknowledges that the existence burns
itself to give the self light and warmth and pleasure beyond words. While the
self is wrapped in light and warmth, the aburning existence as it were is
waning. Tear drops drop. The white candle is melting every minute, every
second, every fraction of a second the world of non self is wearing out. We can
visualize the wearing out in the wax of the candle dropping. The poet perceives
tear drops in the continuous wearing out of the non self. Thus the existence or
the non self including the Sun and the Moon and every living thing and every inert thing seems
to be ceaselessly wearing out.. Thus the non self could be compared to be a fountain
of ceaseless tear drops. The world is aburning and weeping at the same time.
This is the stuff of good poetry where the fire and tears, the opposites meet. The
poet observes the white candle. He finds the wax melt – tear drops drop fall
white. What are these tears for? When
joy becomes too deep, it becomes close to tears. The world of non self joys in
suffering .There is a pleasure in suffering for the cause of self. And it is
through this drops and wearing out of the non self, that the self becomes aware
of time. Ex nihilo nihil fit. It is from
the full that the full emerges. The poet observes that the tear drops drop and
embrace the body of the non self itself. It is white and hence bright. But with
the arrow of time, the non self seems to wear out in height. The poet finds the
spine of the white candle shortening. The self is perceptible only through the
body. The self is perceptible only through the non self. And the non self
aburning gradually wears out in course of time leaving as it were a sea of
tears. Our body is foredoomed to wear out. The day will come when the sun will
not burn any more and the existence might float on the boundless causal waters.
It seems that a time might come when the destruction of the world would be
complete. But is that really the end of the world? Nope. The third stanza of
the poem cries in the voice of the birds- Where have you disappeared? The non
self having been disappeared the self is no longer perceptible. The sea of
tears could be espied. The speaker or the poet says that the early birds call
him to wake. The birds do not have any physical existence at this point of time
when there is no time at all. The birds are simply the primordial sound or the
Omkara. At once the white candle song echoes at the point where there is
neither time nor space. The poet says that the white candle song bursts forth
from childhood. That is, what seemed to be dead is born again. The world begins
anew the non self resurrects. The white candle song states
“white candle turns into ash
Ash still gives light
Faded and far away love
Still reflects to shine…”
When the world of non self is fully burnt away, when all matter dissolves,
energy alone lingers. There will be a livid flame floating allover in a sunless
world. This is the ash that still gives light. Light flickers in the embers. It
is never put out. The world of non self cries that it changes but doesn’t die.
Even in its debris it gives lights and faded far away love still reflects to
shine. That is a new creation myth. It tells us that at the beginning of the
beginningness there was love . And this primordial love left a perennial stamp
in the heart of the non self. And the non self even at the point of its
extinction remembers the love – the faded and far away love and it reflects the
same to shine. In other words even at the hour of destruction a fresh beginning
sets in. It is the reminiscence of the primordial love or light that reflects
and the world of non self resurrects.
In fine, here is a pearl of a poem where a cosmic vision and philosophy
remains condensed and compressed.
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