Sympathy with autumn

“Sang thu” is the feeling of changing seasons. Poet Huu Thinh once wrote very well: “There is a summer cloud/ Half of it is leaning towards autumn”. It is the half-heartedness, the emptiness that creates a new feeling. Feeling is a higher frequency than emotion in poetry. It is not clear, vague, something both heartbreaking and heartbreaking like the talented saying of Le Dinh Tien “The withered lotus leaves can wrap the whole autumn” or “I am absent-minded and cannot hold on to the cold wind”. When emotions are pushed up by feelings, intuition awakens a feeling that sometimes reaches the absurd, that is, it reaches: Good poetry! This is the very instinctive quality of a poet, the trembling layer of velvet and snow that strangely penetrates the poet’s “soul coat”.

“Sang thu” by Le Dinh Tien is the step of autumn, the beginning of autumn. Starting with “Where will the red phoenix flower season go, my dear” of student memories, to “The day will be cool, the cicada’s sound will gradually cool down”. The author does not say “turn off the sound” but “cool down the sound”, changing the state of space from “summer to autumn” gradually, gradually fading away, gradually cooling down. “Cooling down the sound” is like the bright summer sunlight has gradually cooled down, that is the time of changing seasons, awakening in the poet’s soul the golden light, the golden color of leaves and flowers typical of autumn: “Your yellow shirt lights up the whole season”. The steps of “Autumn” begin with “Who sells the fragrant green rice on a small cart”. Green rice is a special gift of autumn. “Fragrant green rice” spreads into the fragrant golden autumn sunlight to the point of “Hearing the sunlight pouring into my hair”. The steps of “Autumn” follow “I go down the street, absent-mindedly following the color of the wind”. Le Dinh Tien has created flickering poetic images, always clinging, always entangled. It is this illusion of projection that creates the interweaving of nostalgia and attachment. That is the poetry of poetry, requiring imagination and strange immersion, creating a special field of sympathy, somewhat vague and fragile but clearly haunting.

I really like the image of life, the beauty of the trembling, youthful, joyful silk of nature, a holy beauty born when: "The season will gradually fade away with the sound of leaves/Only rain remains on the dry, skinny branches" to suddenly be stunned: "By the window, what a beautiful young bud". The young buds, the young shoots sprout when autumn leaves fall, just one word "fall" makes the heart ache. The author hears the leaves falling with the intuition of his soul, a feeling of longing, regret: "I'm afraid tomorrow autumn will also pass by". At this point, the subject of autumn appears as a living being, a friendly communication.

The last verse seems to want to instill in us: “My feet miss the vastness” when “I am afraid that tomorrow someone will leave the city”, while autumn is beautiful, fragrant, seductive, and promising: “In September, it will be the season of milk flowers/The nights of deep fragrance are endless”. I use a “reverse” technique to find the origin, the throbbing feeling to be wistful, to share even though it is just autumn, the poet is already worried about the day when autumn will enter a new season or the regretful tolerance of a personal love. All of it makes sense even though now “Autumn” is just beginning like a premonition…

HA HUY