The poet depicts the image of his grandmother through familiar memories such as the sound of the bamboo stick outside the gate every time she comes home, her hunched back next to the trees in the garden... But all of that is no longer there.
BACK HOME WITHOUT GRANDMOTHER
Going home without grandma
Let the betel leaves wither, let the areca bunch grow old
The yellow sunshine in the backyard
The birds' sad chirping makes the sunset sad.
Bamboo stick to stimulate poor alley
The garden remembers the leaning figure of the hunched back.
The sky is white like cotton clouds
Incense smoke draws sad curves
Back home, I miss my grandmother.
The corner of the house is littered with lime pots and betel leaves.
The pond bank loves pumpkins and gourds
Holding hands, repeating the same old words
Going home without grandma
Who should I buy gifts for in my hometown market?
Knowing that the year is wide and the month is long
Life is like flowing water and floating clouds...
Going home without grandma
Wandering around, as if having no home…
NGUYEN THI VIET NGA
I have not had the opportunity to read many poems by Nguyen Thi Viet Nga. By chance, one time I opened the page of the Ho Chi Minh City Literature and Arts Newspaper and saw the poem "Returning to the Hometown Without Grandma", I was immediately impressed. It seemed that every reader whose grandmother had passed away saw themselves in it. Indeed, the poem spoke for the feelings and moods of many people, creating sympathy for many readers.
The first verse of the poem opens up a situation: the grandchild returns to his hometown but his grandmother is no longer there. From then on, many images associated with his hometown and his familiar grandmother appear, stirring the lyrical character's heart. The grandmother's absence makes everything lonely and cold: the withered betel leaves, the old areca bunch, the bewildered yellow sunlight, the anxious sound of birds, just that much is enough to express the bewilderment and emptiness of the orphaned grandchild in the familiar space of his hometown:
Going home without grandma
Let the betel leaves wither, let the areca bunch grow old
The yellow sunshine in the backyard
The birds' sad chirping makes the sunset sad.
The second stanza continues to depict the image of the grandmother through familiar memories from the sound of the bamboo stick outside the gate every time she comes home, her hunched back next to the trees in the garden, all of which are now gone. The grandchild only seems to imagine her somewhere in the white clouds across the sky, in the sad incense smoke, so much regret, so much sorrow through each word:
Bamboo stick to stimulate poor alley
The garden remembers the leaning figure of the hunched back.
The sky is white like cotton clouds
Incense smoke draws sad curves
In the poem "Remembering December", she also has some touching verses about her mother through white clouds:
Mother's brown shirt is now far away
White clouds in the sky
December is coming, mom.
I wrap banh chung alone...
Continuing the memories of her grandmother, the third stanza brings about feelings of loss and emptiness: the familiar voice of her grandmother is absent, the lime pots are rolling around in the corner of the house, just that much leaves a deep aftertaste in the reader. The remaining vines and gourds on the pond bank are intertwined, as if reminding her of the folk songs, proverbs, and stories that she often told her grandchildren. The image of the grandmother is often associated with cultural and folk literature, but those are also lessons that contribute to the formation of her personality since her childhood, those heartfelt sentences are filled with human love that she can never forget:
Back home, I miss my grandmother.
The corner of the house is littered with lime pots and betel leaves.
The pond bank loves pumpkins and gourds
Holding hands, repeating the same old words
By means of structural repetition, the fourth stanza evokes a moment of hesitation when passing through the countryside market: who do I know to buy as a gift, a piece of cake, or a piece of shell, areca nut, or betel leaf that I used to buy at the countryside market every time I visited my grandmother before, now even that familiar thing has become a disappointment. The poet Nguyen Thi Mai once passed through the betel shop and missed her mother, and Nguyen Thi Viet Nga passed through the market and missed her grandmother, both carrying similar feelings when mentioning their relatives, although knowing that life is limited before the flow of time, they cannot help but feel sad and regretful, these are verses that are forever engraved in the hearts of readers:
Going home without grandma
Who should I buy gifts for in my hometown market?
Knowing that the year is wide and the month is long
Life is like flowing water and floating clouds...
Still with the refrain "Returning to the homeland without her", the poet concludes the poem with a feeling of sadness and emptiness, the grandmother is the homeland, now without her it is like not having a homeland. The poem's words gather many deep and touching emotions. The lyrical character becomes a lonely and lost person right in his homeland, the verse has a strong emotional value to the reader because of the harmony of sincere emotions:
Going home without grandma
Wandering around, as if having no home…
The poem consists of 18 verses, written in the traditional six-eight meter, the language is gentle but has great power to move. From the verse "Going home without grandma", the poem opens up many feelings and associations for the reader, has the power to move people's hearts with its sincerity, simplicity, humanity, evoking in each person the most sacred emotions.
NGUYEN QUYNH ANH