1972

"Hết kháng chiến nếu con còn chưa về

Mẹ ơi, vui lên, mẹ có đứa con anh hùng."

    


    Nineteen seventy-two

Twelve nights

I still remember

One hell of a capital.

Linebacker number two

Winter

I still remember

The way our capital burned up

fire and bombs after bombs and fire

A feverish nightmare.


    I don't want to remember

The decrepit ruins, the collapsed buildings

   homes, and schools, libraries, and hospitals

Toddlers who died in bomb shelters. 

I don't want to remember 

The way my beloved went up in flame

How Hà Nội, oh, our dear Hà Nội

B fifty-two, we were their first aim. 


    For twelve nights, the bombing did not stop

Even after we have shot down their flying metal fortress

Even after we have lost limbs

Fighting the beast with our bare hands. 

Shredded, our lungs

Evacuated, families

Sacrificed, the pionniers 

Us, never-returning sons and daughters. 


    I remember on the seventh night

my home is still bright red

But the light in my eyes

   is going out. 


    I taste

The bloody dirt on my tongue

    I smell 

bullets, smoke, charred hope

    I feel

pain, regret—burnt, hopeless optimism

    I see

    A puddle of muddy water

    Splashed on my open hands

    My retinae blurring darker.

And my peers, rushing, guns gripped tight

Please don't let tears burn your wounds

You can later shatter, but now, we have to fight.


    I can't see, for my eyes are shut

but I hear

A loud explosion, AKs going off

My dear friends, my dear home

All fading into a distance.

    Mom, I'm sorry 

I have promised you that after my brother, it won't be me

But please live a good life

For even if I do not return after tonight

You would know that your daughter is a hero.


    And tonight I lie here, 

under America's brutality

But tomorrow I will lie

on top of freedom

With those who did and will be dying by my side. 

    And tonight I fall down

at seventeen, with unfinished dreams

But tomorrow, just tomorrow

I will rise higher than any sorrow.

    The war has swallowed a generation's future

But we will throw dirt at its face

and make it spit out

everything it has taken from us.

Everything, until the land reunites.


    Comrades, one last word

Bring my mother chrysanthemums

So she will have something for my altar

When the war is over, but not now.

    Not now, when the air is clogged

Not now, when I'm just one of many

But when the capital lights up

Not with bombs, but with lights

True, soft lights of victory.

    

    And then, the chrysanthemums 

As bright and yellow

As our country's shining star

And then, the teenagers' red scarf

As our country's red, waving, smiling.

    At last, our rebuilt schools

rebuilt hospitals, but not families.

But hope is resilient

    Like those who have fallen down with me

Our unkempt ambition

will soon set us free.

********







Hà Nội, mười hai ngày đêm, tháng 12 năm 1972. "Điện Biên Phủ Trên Không"


Notes: The attached song is the OST of Mưa Đỏ, a movie about the 81-days-long battle of Quảng Trị Citadel during the summer of 1972. However, this poem is about the Linebacker II, a bombing campaign that targets the northern region of Vietnam, for twelve days in December of the same year.  


Last edit: Jan 19th, 2026

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Voices

Image
         I don't know how, but I definitely need to get rid of my suicidal thoughts. There's too many of them, clouding and webbing up neurons of my brain —one by one.      The truth is: I've been hearing voices.  There's no way to end all this unless you die     it's behind you, it's chasing you —always kill yourself. kill yourself and end it all for everyone else, too. it's easy as one step....end the torture you know what? just fucking pull the tr—     The voices that latch themselves onto my spine without my permission, grapple my heart and squeeze it tight. The voices that are slowly snacking on my bone marrow, are now waiting for me to crumble just so they could feast on my mind, on my head that will soon be nothing but a skull of sloppy, tissues-like jelly, blood, and dirt.      So many times I have let those voices win. They were never there for me when I'm at my weakest, they're only there to make m...
Read more

What I Left and What Left Me

Image
  I thought I left my childhood behind with the country when I moved away, but I didn’t. The ghosts of the country haunt me, the scents and tastes of those years gnaw at me, the vague faces in homesick reveries grip me by the throat, rasping and whimpering about an uncompleted promise I once made.  And they won’t ever leave.       My childhood does not die at once, but multiple times throughout my life, reminding me of a life I had to reluctantly let go of. It died when I noticed that I no longer want to look back at the younger version of myself. It died again when I stepped off the plane into a land of foreign tongues, like an unfitting trespasser. Fragment by fragment, I tried to grip at the fading memories and begged them to stay—but they never listened. They keep on moving, keep on changing, keep on replacing themselves until the only thing left is broken shards of the life I once had. That life will never return, and I left so soon that I can’t ev...
Read more

Rotten Honey

Image
      Today is me and my wife's two years anniversary. I was away on a business trip last year, but I'm home now. I can't wait to spend the day with her.      It was only 8 a.m when I woke up, sunshine streaming lazily through the cracks of the curtains. My eyes opened slowly—it is unusually bright today despise it being the middle of winter and there are more clouds than there is sun. I sat up, looking groggily around the room. My wife is nowhere to be seen. This has been going on for a while, probably since I caught her having an affair with one of my colleagues a week ago (or, as I awkwardly refer to it: "The Incident"). I did not make a fuss out of it, but she has been avoiding me by spending her time lounging in our basement. We'd go to bed together at night, then I'd wake up all alone, nostrils stinging from a pungent smell of room freshener.      My wife suddenly developed a penchant for that smell, so she began to use it for our ...
Read more