The Old Lover On The Mountain
Later, during a few trips to San Francisco in the beginning of 1988, the thought suddenly came to me that we were only twelve years away from the 21st century. Among other things, I saw clearly that the second generation of overseas Viets - especially of Viet Americans - those in their twenties, had turned their back on Vietnamese music. Then a few chance meetings with old friends who reminded me of our younger days prompted me to compose again. I thought immediately of writing some ''songs for the year 2000''. Again I wrote a series of ten songs, which I called MƯỜI BÀI RONG CA (Ten Wandering Songs).
The song cycle was presented on Voice Of America immediately on its completion. Bùi Bảo Trúc wrote:
Bùi Bảo Trúc
Messages For The Coming Century
Phạm Duy, the lover of several generations, has painted the image of an old lover on a mountain, looking at the melancholic clouds, at the snow melting, at the dying twilight, who suddenly hears the call of his beloved from down in the world. He leaves the mountain to go and meet his old lover, to live again the four seasons of their lives, and they promise to come back to life again every century. But the message of HOÁ SINH (Rebirth), about the return of the dead leaves to their source, is not as important as how to make flowers bloom again on the dry branches. The people of the soon-to-end 20th century are the dying leaves, and the lovers of the 21st century are the newly opening flowers.
The first wandering song shows an old man standing on a mountain top in the sunset. He suddenly hears the voice of ''Em'' (Beloved) echoing from down below. Was that a real lover or an imaginary person? Could it be Mother Vietnam? The man walks down the mountain to meet Her, and to relive with Her the four seasons of a life and the four seasons of a love. Then they promise to be reborn every hundred years:
The Old Lover On The Mountain
(Rebirth)
(San Francisco, January 88)
An old lover on the mountain
With snow melting on his tired shoulders,
Standing in the pale and hazy cloud,
Looks at the dying sun.
Standing on the top
He wants to forget his years of existence,
But from the vast and distant world
He hears the voice of his beloved:
''O lonely old lover
Do you remember me ?''
The old lover hears the call,
He walks slowly on the sunset path,
Down the valley, up the hill,
He arrives at a lawn of fading grass,
He remembers his youth.
Bending, he kisses a flower
In a cavern where a brook sings
He seems to hears her whispering:
''I've waited such a long time;
I am still yearning for you !''
Once he was the sunshine of Spring
He led her on the path of life,
Caressed her in the soft Summer,
Then left her when Autumn arrived
And became a winter tree.
Dead leaves piled on the tree's roots
But every hundred years
Flowers will bloom on the dry branches.
The old lover enters the mysterious zone
Where Death and Life shimmer.
Becoming once more a young lover
He lives every day with passion,
Walking with Spring steps past the long Summer,
Promising to travel down the centuries.
My love, life is in our grasp
We're together for scarcely thirty thousand days,
Let's live love to the full,
Don't worry about Autumn and Winter.
Then the lover looks back at the mountain
And sings his new Springtime song.
He promises to return
In a hundred years
From the mountain he will go down
To enjoy life
And every century
He will be reborn once more...
Hẹn Em Năm 2000
SEE YOU IN 2000
(California, 1988)
Leave the door unlocked so I can come back.
Long have I led a passionate life,
A little while, a busy hundred years,
When I see you again
We'll tell each other about our little separation
Once we hurriedly said good bye
A hundred years of trouble, a season of passion
We did not realize that there would come
A hundred years of fighting and hatred.
In this life so icy
Like a dream love floated past.
Half our life we fought for freedom
Till hair turned white and hearts withered
Half our life we waited for rewards
But saw only bones piling up
Nothing left to love anymore
Nothing left for the future.
When I see you, we'll cherish each daỵ
In 2000 another hundred years will begin
What will the century be called?
A hundred years of love,
Or a hundred years of sorrow?
Tell me,
''Will our love be an orphan
Or will it have peace for ever?''
Me. Năm 2000
Mother of The Year 2000
(San Francisco, February 1988)
She will not be like our Mother of yesteryear
Fairy Mother Âu Cơ, wife of the Dragon,
Mother Tô turned into stone, Mother Châu Long,
Mother Heroine, avenger of her husband, savior of her nation.
She will not be the Mother of our paintings,
Mother Quan Yin, Mother Maria,
Mother of soldiers, Mother of the Delta
At the end of the century, she will be only three years old.
She is still a little girl
Lacking food, clothes and education
Lacking security and love,
Looking at each other they do not see a future.
Mother lives in a suffering land
From birth they feel only loneliness
Their youth a violent one that passes quickly
At the end of this century
Mother will be ten
Lost in some alien land
Her language forgotten, her name changed
She will ask ''What is Vietnam? Explain to me!''
At the end of this century
Mother will be twenty
Standing on the verge of an abyss
Will her steps lead to destruction?
Look carefully: In a hundred years
Will Mother Vietnam overcome or retreat?
The little girl is Mother of the future.
Vietnam was once was radiant and peaceful
Thanks to Mother on her throne
Sending her love to humanitỵ
You who are watching our dying Mother,
Ill Mother, poor Mother, sad Mother,
Look at each other with troubled hearts and repent
We must be united to save Her!
Mother is facing the future,
She's entering a new century
Will she give birth to heroes and sages
Or cowards and tyrants ?
(*) Maybe the situation has changed by the time you read this in 1998 ? (PD)
The fourth song was titled MỘ PHẦN THẾ KỶ
(A Tomb For The Century). In it I wanted to set out to pick up the
bodies of the past and bury them, together with the sufferings of
this century, with the political doctrines, with the enbalmed tyrants,
so that on this tomb of the century, we can hear the song of children
riding on buffaloes among sweet-scented flowers.
Mộ Phần Thế Kỷ
A Tomb For The Century
In the winter he walks,
Lost in a mist-like dream
Behind a body gatherer on the battlefield
After nearly a hundred years
This man quietly gathers the corpses
Rotten corpses of millions dead
From World War I, World War II
Then from a war between brothers
Who killed each other for Peace.
In the winter he walks
Wearing colors of mourning, carrying pity
Behind the grave digger in the sunset.
After burying the corpses, with a happy heart
He listens to the coming Spring.
Beside the grave
He hears little children
Sitting on buffaloes
Singing, playing.
Tomorrow, on the grave
A flower will bloom.
-- What will be the name of this flower ?
-- It's the sunflower, my dear !
Bury them in a deep mass grave,
Bury them in a shallow forgotten grave,
Heros of straw, exalted ideologies.
Bury the miseries of a hundred years
Skeleton-like children walking behind starvation
Regional dictators
Enbalmed tyrants
Bury them at once in the hole of oblivion.
Throw in Fascism
Shove in Marxism
And bury our own cowardice.
In the winter he walks
Wearing colors of mourning, carrying pity
Behind the laborer filling the graves.
The suffering dead dissolve in the tomb,
Becoming fertilizer for the next centurỵ
Passing the grave they'll see soft grass
So soft lovers will lie down on it.
On the tomb a flower will bloom,
-- What's the name of this flower?
-- It's the love-flower, my dear!
NGỤ NGÔN MÙA XUÂN
SPRING FABLE
(New Year of The Dragon - February 1988)
Two blind men are fighting in the street
Bruised foreheads and bloodied ears.
Two dumb men are arguing in the market
Sore tongues and burning lips.
Two men blind and dumb and deaf,
Two deaf men listen to Chinese music,
To European, American and Russian music...
Two big guys will die if they fight each other
They hide their weapons
Two fat guys are afraid of each other
So they agree to ignore each other
get two skinny guys to fight
They get two skinny guys to make peace
With blood, bones, flesh and skin.
One blind trashes the other blind
Jubilantly he goes home, proudly looking up
One mute beats the other mute
Jubilantly he goes home, proudly stuttering
The blind, the dumb, the deaf
Sit down, cross their legs
Thinking that their miserable huts are palaces
They have no idea their country is in a mess
They don't hear the cries of the mourning widow
They don't see the eyes of the orphaned child.
have no sweet voice to offer love
To the new flowers on the ruins,
They close their eyes, their ears, their mouths
Suddenly, the Old Lover drops in
As the old century is ending.
Suddenly the sun shines at midnight
And the blind can see.
Suddenly, the Old Lover whispers in the deaf's ears
Perhaps some sweet words
''The year 2000 is coming!''
Seeing the new century coming,
Hearing the wise words,
The men are no longer dumb.
They can speak to the future
They can leave the darkness in their hearts
They can see the way
The way to eternity.
NẮNG CHIỀU RỰC RỠ
Magnificent Sunset
(San Francisco - Spring 88)
Don't be sad at the moment of separation,
When sunset comes, trembling on the bamboo
Don't be sad when the sun dies and the night arrives,
It's the law of yang and yin.
Patches of light
Still shine on the veranda.
Warm and sweet sunrays
Are so many wishes
Wishes that lovers everywhere
Enjoy a lasting sunset,
As long as the night has not yet arrived
The sunset is brighter than dawn or noontide.
O my love, do you see the magnificent sunset?
O my love, do you see the beautiful sun is still there ?
As long as the sun tarries,
O night! Don't hurry.
As long as the sun lies over the world
O night ! Please wait!
Don't be sad because I must die
I am still with you for a moment.
Some day I have to leave this earth,
If I have only one day to live, I'll have a thousand joys.
The love between us
Has only a short time
But consider our love
As a thousand rays of light.
The century is at its sunset
So people will remember people
Standing at the door to another next hundred years
In life's sunset we love each other for evermore
O my love, do you see the magnificent sunset?
O my love, do you see the beautiful sun is still there ?
As long as the sun tarries,
O night! Don't hurry.
As long as the sun lies over the world
O night ! Please wait!
BÀI HÁT NGHÌN THU
Song Of Eternity
(Midway City - 1988)
Eternally, I am the brook in the mountain,
Becoming a river I flow down
I spill into the sea.
Eternally, you are the waves beating on the shore
Up the river you go,
You are the sea always full.
You are the emptiness
That love can fill.
I am the empty place
Where love is fulfilled.
Our love goes to Eternity.
You are the wind, I am the cloud
Going to the right, going to the left
And returning like a pendulum resting.
Eternally you grow the buds in silence
Until the apricot branches bloom.
Eternally, I am the moon, dark or bright,
In silence I rise, I descend,
Unseen or in full view.
Our love changes
In each eon,
Our love is forever moving
In and out of the world.
Our love is nirvana
Sometimes near, sometimes far
It's in the light
It's in darkness
Eternally, I am already you !
And you, in many lives,
Have been inside me.
Eternally we maintain
The love of yin and yang
Round and round in death and life.
TRĂNG GIÀ)
OLD MOON
(San Francisco, February 1988)
How old are you, Old Moon?
It seems I am as old as you
I am as old as the Moon,
As old as you, my love!
You are old, but you shine gently
O Moon my love, always shining gently
O Moon living all alone,
I am as lonely as you
I am as lonely as the Moon
O Moon my love, shimmering Moon
How old is the stone, he's so worn out
Why is he so unhappy, so deeply unhappy
As sad as me, but sad as he is
The stone still stands majestically
Moon and Stone ! How old are you ?
I think that you are still young,
Still new, as I am !
O Moon, all your life you never speak;
I have always been impatient.
Rolling through life, wandering through life
Singing soft and loud.
O Moon, you have lived for eons,
I'll live less than a hundred years
That's why I have to wander alone, singing
On behalf of Moon and Stone.
In your former life, you were a tree
Then a volcano's flames came to the forest.
Young trees, centenarian trees,
All became silent stone.
Moon and Stone, you have no age and say no word
I live and die, so I must sing for you
Lying on the ground, stone listens
To my song rising to the Moon.
I'll sing in this life, I'll sing in the next.
NGỰA HỒNG
RED STALLION
(MIdway Cicy, Spring 1988)
Red Stallion carried his soldier
To countless battlefields
Today he's in a harness
Dragging a heavy cart
The road of life is winding and narrow
The ground is covered with mud
The grass is dying
Red Stallion walks past ruined citadels
And moss-covered shrines
Red Stallion carries a heavy load on his back,
His old hoofs hesitate
Mane balding, hair falling
Spine sagging spine, he steps aimlessly
The whip burns his flank
The rein chokes his breath
The bit locks his mouth
It's his fate to carry a brutal tyrant
Red Stallion was once proud and noble
As he stepped into the battlefield
His mane floating in the morning breeze,
His tail swinging in the smoky dusk.
Today, even when carrying an embroidered sađle
Or pulling a Royal Coach, he is still a slave.
A golden sedan-chair sits on his back
But his eyes are covered with blinds.
On the bumpy road he's lonely.
Red Stallion carried his soldier
To countless battlefields
Today he's in a harness
Dragging a heavy cart.
The road of life is winding and narrow
The ground is covered with mud
The grass is dying
Red Stallion walks past ruined citadels
And moss-covered shrines.
As he walks in the century-old evening
Red Stallion suddenly see a Wild Horse
A Magic Horse without a saddle,
A Heroic Horse without a bridle
Stepping proudly in the mist.
Pitying his brother,
Wild Horse galloped across the hill
And neighed lovingly
''Red Stallion, break your chains,
And go freely into this boundless world!''
Red Stallion turns his head and kicked himself free
Green young grass welcomes the breeze
Dew glows on fragrant wild flowers.
Red Stallion, his eyes uncovered at last
Can see the long long road.
He jumps through the needle's eye
And soars into boundless space!
RONG KHÚC
WANDERING SONG
(In the world, timeless)
From far away, through a myriad worlds,
I have followed the light in the sky,
Arriving at this playground when men were born,
With joy I has visited this world
This human life
Lasting just one hundred years.
I visited every wild land
I sailed the four seas,
Falling gently with the snow in cold regions,
With the wind in old deserts,
Becoming part of the human world.
I have wandered everywhere in this world,
Till I forgot the roads of fairyland
My feet have left traces on every road,
I gave myself a very full life.
I brought you to the source of love,
I followed you through the gate of suffering,
Whenever I saw anyone in pain
I offered my magic heart.
When life descends
Life must arise.
Gently I stepped on the forest path,
The flames of sunsets welcomed my steps
I took you to serene heights
Where the sadness of human fate lightens
And the maelstrom of life is forgotten
I have been on every path of love,
I have followed you to meet the dawn,
I have walked in every sunset,
I took you to the heights of love.
Now is the time I leave this world.
I have heard the call of the universe,
But if you, my love, want to enter the great void
I will lead you on this journey,
A journey across the planets,
Visiting every sun.
I will lead you to the future,
I will take you back to the past,
We will forget we are here,
We will forget we are there,
So our journey will last forever.
I put behind me the roads of the world
I soar into my journey through fairyland.
But if someday someone calls the Lover's name
I'll return to this green world...
Washington D.C. 1988
Bùi Bảo Trúc
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