Thinking about mom with tears in my eyes

For generations, the image of the mother has often appeared in poetry. Each poet, when writing about the mother, brings his own emotional features. Many poetry lovers have mentioned Mother and the Fruit by Nguyen Khoa Diem, Sitting sadly remembering our old mother by Nguyen Duy, Returning to our mother only by Dong Duc Bon... and among the good poems written about mothers, we cannot help but mention Mother by poet Do Trung Lai. The poem was published in the poetry collection Night on the Cau River, People's Army Publishing House in 2003.

The poem Mother is developed through two parallel images: areca and mother. The poet chose a tree that is very familiar in the life of every village. For generations, the areca tree, areca nut and betel leaf have become a beautiful feature in the spiritual life of Vietnamese people. The image of areca nut and betel leaf appears in every important ritual of a person's life cycle from birth, wedding, Tet holiday to daily life. The betel leaf is the beginning of the story. Throughout the poem, poet Do Trung Lai has exploited the artistic technique of contrast through each stanza to bring readers a sense of the closeness between areca and mother: Mother's back is bent/Areca is still straight/Areca - green top/Mother - white hair.

The poem seems like a normal comment, but behind each word is so much bitterness and sorrow when realizing that time and the hardships of life have left their mark on the mother's bent back and white hair. Without much need for words, just through the two images of the mother's bent back and white hair, it evokes so many feelings about the mother's efforts, the hardships and bitterness in her life for her children to grow up and mature. Poet Truong Nam Huong, when writing about his mother, also had some touching lines about his mother's bent back: Time runs through mother's hair/A color of white that makes me feel nauseous/Mother's back keeps bending down/For her children to grow taller and taller (In the words of mother's song).

As time goes by, the areca tree grows taller and taller, while the mother grows shorter and shorter. There is a folk saying: "Close to the ground, far from the sky" to express old age and approaching death. The mother's nearing of the ground, both literally and figuratively, is filled with regret when the mother's time is running out. The mother is like a lamp in the wind, like a ripe banana, the moment when the child no longer has a mother is getting closer and closer: Areca tree grows taller and taller/ Mother grows shorter and shorter/ Areca tree is closer to the sky/ Mother is closer to the ground!

Each stanza in the poem is associated with areca nut, the image of mother and betel nut has become familiar for generations. In the past, when mother was not old, the areca nut was split into four pieces - just enough for mother, but now the areca nut is split into eight pieces, mother is still afraid of its size, the concept of time is present in each stanza of the poem, time makes mother get older, teeth fall out gradually so the areca nut is small but still difficult for mother.

The image of the mother is likened to a dry, skinny areca nut, time has eroded everything, and soon the mother will no longer be in this world, the poet cannot help but shed tears before the image of the mother.

The stanza ends with a rhetorical question, the son suddenly realizes that his mother's time is running out, that he cannot avoid the laws of life and that the day he leaves his mother is approaching. The question has no answer, only clouds flying away like tears of sorrow, surging emotions: Looking up to the sky/- Why is my mother old?/No answer/The clouds fly away.

The poem is very economical with words but contains many profound meanings. The words are simple and natural, without much artistic effort, but still move the reader with sincere emotions, touching the most sacred thing of each person, which is maternal love.

NGUYEN QUYNH ANH