Sacred mother's lullaby

“

In mother's song

Childhood full of fairy tales
River of sweet mother's words
Take your child with you to the country
Rocking and swaying in the hammock of folk songs

I met in my mother's song
White stork wings, green fields
I love the yellow color of squash flowers.
"The chicken clucks the lemon leaves".

Bamboo grove, legendary bamboo grove,
Lullaby of betel nut vine,
The moon of mother when she was a girl,
Still fragrant with areca nut scent.

I hear the sound of mortar
Mother sits pounding rice to raise her children
Please God no storm no storm
Give mom more rice pot…

I hear the waves of rice rippling
Lullaby turns into rice grains
Love mother a miserable life
Still rich in lullabies.

Mother's shirt is faded and tattered
Brown fabric with frayed seams
Love mother a bitter life
Why is mother's word still sweet?

Time runs through mother's hair
A white to nausea
Mom's back is gradually bent down.
Let the child grow taller.

Mom in your song
There is a whole life appearing
Lullaby gives children wings
When I grow up I will fly far away.

TRUONG NAM HUONG

Truong Nam Huong is a talented poet who has won many prestigious poetry awards. To date, he has published dozens of poetry collections and left an unforgettable impression on readers:Song of a Faraway Person (1990), Green Dawn (1994), Love Poems of Truong Nam Huong (1995), Writing for the Old Seasons (1999), Poems for Childhood (2005)... PoemIn mother's songis taught in the 8th grade Literature textbook (Creative Horizon), expressing the feelings of a child when remembering the warm childhood in the gentle lullaby of his mother. That lullaby becomes the source of love, the dream of giving his child wings to fly to the future ahead. The mother's lullaby is both simple and plain, but also great and strangely beautiful, thanks to that, it has brought the child with the sacred country and the vast life.

The poem has eight stanzas, which can be divided into three parts: the first three stanzas are simple, familiar images of the homeland and country appearing through the mother's lullaby; the next four stanzas evoke the image of the mother through the mother's deep, passionate lullaby; the final stanza summarizes and highlights the meaning of the mother's lullaby for the child's life. However, the parts of the poem still have the penetration and harmony of emotions and feelings through each poetic idea, stanza like an underground stream originating from the main inspiration of the work.

In the opening stanza, the author uses comparison and metaphor to describe his mother's lullaby. Indeed, my childhood was filled with my mother's deep, gentle and passionate lullaby. That lullaby contained countless fairy tales, as sweet as a river to take me along with my beloved, beautiful and simple country. My mother's lullaby swayed and swayed to the rhythm of the hammock. My mother lulled me with folk songs of love and affection, thanks to which I grew up knowing my roots and understanding the principles of life from what my mother passed on through the lullaby:Childhood full of fairy tales/...Rocking hammock rhythm folk song.

In the mother's lullaby, the child encounters many familiar, simple images of the beloved Vietnamese countryside and villages: a white stork, a strip of green fields, a yellow squash flower and even the image of "a chicken clucking on lemon leaves". All of them flicker in the innocent, pure memories of the child's childhood.

Not only that, in the sweet lullaby of the mother, the child's childhood appears with the familiar but also legendary village. The bamboo grove by the porch, the bamboo grove on the green village road. That is also the weapon that made the heroic Gióng's victory in defeating the Ân invaders, protecting the Fatherland. The most beautiful is the metaphorical image of "mother's moon when she was a girl" appearing shimmering and shining like the gentle beauty, the love of mother and father "entwined with betel leaves" and the fragrant scent of areca filled with memories.

In my mother's lullaby, I listen to the many hardships and difficulties that she has gone through. I listen to the sound of my mother pounding rice every night to make rice grains to raise me to be a good person. I listen to the undulating waves of rice in the fields, feeling sorry for my mother alone in the sun and rain. Although life is full of hardships, my mother is still rich in lullabies, rich in boundless love for her children. The repetition of "con nghe..." in the fourth and fifth stanzas creates a lingering sound as if the poet is talking to himself and sending a message to everyone, while creating a rhythm that hums and echoes like the rhythm of a lullaby. The poetic images here are also rich in evocative power thanks to the unique associative ability of Truong Nam Huong's pen:"I hear the sound of mortar/ Mother sits pounding rice to raise her children/ I hear the waves of rice rippling/ The lullaby has turned into rice grains".

Continuing the flow of poetry depicting the image of the mother, the sixth and seventh stanzas depict a poor, hard-working mother who has endured many sacrifices through her “faded, silvery-white” shirt, “broken seams” and “white to the point of nausea” hair. Mother’s life is like that, without even a single intact shirt for herself, only her lullaby remains intact and fragrant through time. One day, suddenly, the child suddenly realizes that his mother is old, her back is bent and her hair is white so that he can grow up and mature.

Personification and contrast are the two main rhetorical devices in the seventh stanza. Time, which is invisible, suddenly becomes visible, knowing that it “runs through mother’s hair”, making the child feel that the years have passed so quickly, and that in a moment, mother has grown old, and then he is startled when he sees that there are many silver strands in her hair, and her back has become more bent. The contrast between mother’s faded shirt and her fragrant lullaby, mother’s bent back and the child growing taller, deeply expresses the poet’s feelings and emotions about mother’s great sacrifice:" Time runs through mother's hair/...Let me grow taller day by day".

By the last stanza of the poem, the emotional flowIn mother's songclosed but the poet associates it more generally, more deeply and with many profound symbolic meanings. Leaving no money or material things, the mother only gives her child a lullaby like an angel's wings so that the child can go with the end of the world, understanding the vastness of life:Mom, in your song / There is a whole life appearing/ Lullaby gives children wings/ When I grow up I will fly far away.

AllIn mother's songwritten in six-syllable verse, with spaced rhymes, creating a steady, gentle rhythm like a lullaby. In particular, throughout the work, Truong Nam Huong uses many images and words rich in expressive nuances such asfairy tale, folk song hammock rhythm, stork wings, green fields, squash flowers, betel vine, moon, rice waves, rice grains, brown fabric, frayed thread, bitterness, fragrant herbs… has delicately and deeply described the hard, difficult life and the immense sacrifice of the mother. The poem therefore has a strong influence, evoking feelings of love and respect for the mother of all those living in the world.