My Feelings
I have just read this poem, and felt how dazed I am.
Tôi, em, bình thủy tương phùng
Có ngày gặp lại, có mừng không em?
I don’t understand this poem much, because it has many Old Chinese-Vietnamese Words, however, I will try my best to translate it into English. There are two characters in the poem, one is a guy, and the other is a gal. They met each other by accident.
The first sentence tells us about the situation that both of them meet each other. Tôi means I (the guy), em means you (the gal), bình-thủy means serene water, and tương-phùng means meet each other. So, what does this sentence mean? Have you ever seen a silent lake without any ripples? Yes, when seeing it, we can feel the absolute silence, no move, no sound, nothing at all. Here, in this sentence, the author considered himself and his gal as serene streams, more exactly, it must be the silent water surfaces. Two persons living their own lives silently can meet each other, it must be wonderful. And through this image, the author wanna send us his message that their meeting is very very precious. Is there any thing more precious than meeting each other by fate?
Suddenly, the author asks a question, if we have a day to reunite, if you are happy? I really don’t understand much this sentence, because the sentence structures of Vietnamese language are very complex, and unclear. Therefore, I don’t know what the author really wants to say. It might be, the gal and the guy met each other in a short moment, then parted, and the guy asked if they had a day to re-unite, would the gal be happy? If so, it’s truly sad. Because, this couple had experienced in such a beautiful situation. They had lived their normal and silent lives before meeting each other, but they had to be far apart then. How sad it is.
Later on, I knew that the author met the girl when he was going to market. They became friends then. After some time, the girl was killed by a car accident. The guy felt something missing. Everywhere in his life is full of her traces, such as, the street, the market, the church, his phonebook, his MS Outlook, etc. Everything belonged to her is still the same, her name, her email address, her phone number, her emails sent to him, etc. He even can hear her voice… That’s why he wrote two sentences mentioned above. It can also explain why the last sentence is very equivocal.
However, how much can a poem attract readers, it has to depend on the readers’ mood, feelings. Some poems are normal to these persons, but excellent to those ones. For me, it’s the same. I like this poem because I am partly in the same situation.
My situation is described in the first sentence. Yes, we met each other by accident. It seems to be fate that make us to know each other. We had not any special memories, just communicated some trivial words. After some months, one day, I found myself having something very special. I then suddenly felt something missing. I am suddenly afraid to lose something, I suddenly… There are too many “suddenly” that I am afraid they will happen. Yes, when people meet each other by accident, and they feel that their relationship is precious, they are always afraid of losing it. So am I. But I don’t know how to keep it. Should I tell her what I felt?
Don’t forget to give me your answers. Thank you for your reading.