Did the people of Viet Nam
use lanterns of stone?
Did they hold ceremonies
to reverence the opening of buds?
Were they inclined to quiet laughter?
Did they use bone and ivory,
jade and silver, for ornament?
Had they an epic poem?
Did they distinguish between speech and singing?
Sir, their light hearts turned to stone.
It is not remembered whether in gardens
stone gardens illumined pleasant ways.
Perhaps they gathered once to delight in blossom,
but after their children were killed
there were no more buds.
Sir, laughter is bitter to the burned mouth.
A dream ago, perhaps. Ornament is for joy.
All the bones were charred.
it is not remembered. Remember,
most were peasants; their life
was in rice and bamboo.
When peaceful clouds were reflected in the paddies
and the water buffalo stepped surely along terraces,
maybe fathers told their sons old tales.
When bombs smashed those mirrors
there was time only to scream.
There is an echo yet
of their speech which was like a song.
It was reported their singing resembled
the flight of moths in moonlight.
Who can say? It is silent now.
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english
From guest amber (contact)
the poet compares the younger generation to "buds" on a tree this show....... -
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For guest Dawn
Please read some of the comments below, they should help you get a feel of what Levertov is trying to do in thid poem.
If it is still obscure how about opening a thread in the forum here at Oldpoetry?
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What were they like?
Unfortunately the people of Viet Nam were not all peaceful peasants. Putting that point aside, Denise delivers a few painful punches around the heart area with this one. "It was reported their singing resembled the flight of moths in moonlight". Poetry like that redeems any prosaic elements in the earlier lines. -
Profound
This is the one thing completely lost to us today...Just stopping and letting others be. Thank you for sharing this... -
I love this poem we are studying ' what where they like?' in English. I think that more young people should respect this poem and not laugh at the suffering of others in such a cruel manner
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awesome poem
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Ideal?
Yeah, too bad this world isn't perfect.
Then freedom would cost nothing. -
Viet Nam War
I worked in a hospital during my time in the service in the late 1960s. So I have no expeience with the war itself. Just the fallout. Many tales were told to me by wounded soldiers. Why the Vietnam people do not hate us is hard for me to understand. I love the peom. It is rich in emotion. -
I studied this one at school and the copy I have has numbered bullet points like a Q&A. Out of the whole cluster I've had to study, this poem was by far my favourite along with Vultures. It's beautiful in a tradgic way - I cannot believe anyone would be willing to destroy peoples spirits like that. That war was wrong. Hands down.
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"I do not know how World War III will be fought, but World War IV will
be fought with sticks and stones."
A. Einstein
PS> Nice poem Denise -
The legacy of all wars is, in effect, the changes that are wrought on the people.
Not only the physical changes, but the emotional, the mental and the spiritual. European culture counts the dead and wounded as casualties. They are the minority, the forgotten casualties are the others with unseen injuries. -
Though the country here is Vietnam it could so easily be a hundred different settings in a hundred different times.
War, especially long drawn out civil wars, have such a devastating effect on both sides that the survivors find it hard to concieve of what things were like before the war. They question all that they hear about those times as if it is just another story and not truth.
They ask (and so should we)
"Who can say? It is silent now" -
I'm supposing that this death and destruction speaks of the Vietnam War in all it's horror and infamy. How cold the words are as they hit the reader in the face and heart, this lady poet certainly packs a punch.
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- What Were They Like? by Denise Levertov, with 2 responses
