A Vietnamese poem by Mai Van Phan explicated

A Vietnamese Poem Composed By Mai Van Phan

Time to Chant a Prayer

Translated into English by Pompen Hantrakool

Evplicated by Dr Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyay

 Text

Twitter of a bird

An arousing fragrant incense

Reminding of a prayer for the soon to come  new leaves

Ambiguity is sine qua non with good poetry.Mai Van Phans poems in their reticence suggest  numerous planes of thoughts and sensations in a flash.With him twitter of a bird is an arousing fragrant incense. Well to compare short high pitched calls of a bird with arousing incense is an instance of synaesthesia. A thing that appeals to the ear has been described in terms of a thing that appeals to the nose.Besides while twitter or chirps or chirrups are a sequence of discrete sounds fragrance comes to us as continuous. Thus with the poet there is no difference between sound and scent or between the discrete or the continuous.. It might seem that the twitter of a bird is but an arousing fragrant incense or else an arousing fragrant incense is as it were the twitter of a bird. On another level the twitter of a bird evokes a fragrant incense or else a fragrant incense arouses or evokes a birds song.  Seen from the Hindu point of view the same could mean that it is the primordial sound Om which signifies the skies that arouses fragrance  which is the attribute of the earth Incense is literally man made. It is burned to create a smell.A fragrant burning incense awakens or aro uses the bird or the bard and either of them or both sing. Or else the latters song awakens man  and sends him to burn incense.The chirpings of the bird might stand for the bell. The incense aburning  and the bell might remind the poet that it is the hour for prayer.But nay. The bird and the incense remind the poet of a prayer. In other words the prayer was lurking in the heart of the poet. The bird and the fragrance only make the prayer manifest or arouse the prayer that was dormant in the heart of the poet or evokes a prayer that was already in the heart of the poet. May be the present poem has been manifest under the spell of the birds song or Nature and incense or human effort,The birds song and the incense make the auspicious hour for prayer.What is a prayer? It is a solemn request for something or a earnest thanksgiving or an earnest hope or wish. The bird and the fragrance remind the poet of a prayer for the soon to come new leaves.Fresh leaves depict hope fertility and revival. Leaves of the tree of life  denote every kind of living thing in the existence..The prayer or earnest hope or thanksgiving is for a new birth in the offing. It speaks of regeneration of a nation or of humanity as a whole or of Nature..It speaks of Spring in the threshold. The poem could be read as a creation myth as well.