Since you were gone away, sweetheart,
The town just droops with lots of tears.
The sun, too, does not the clouds part,
Violent sudden storm appears.

The rain keeps falling all day long,
And sadness fills me with glum sighs.
Where is it that you went so long
And left me with a heart that dies?

I gather all my gloomy thoughts,
Discard not one of my deep wounds,
Keep them in my bosom distraught
When you come back after your rounds.

I'll sell them not to any one,
Only to you, my dear, so you
Can see and have what I have done:

Each strand for one love web so true,
Each strand for one line of love verse
Each strand for one word of poem too.

With that I'll weave a web of love
Around you, dear, to bind all you
Around all me, and be just one,
Just one for me and no one else.

22 December 2002

Analysis

I. Thesis Development

In this poem, Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang has deftly captured the pain, loneliness, anguish, and turmoil of a young woman who is temporarily separated from the man she loves.

His absence has left in her heart a great void that is filled with melancholy, gloomy feelings, emptiness, longing and depressed thoughts. Like Lamartine in his poem Isolement, the world is devoid of life in the absence of just one person. And this sense of bone-wearying despair is excruciatingly painful. It is a heart-wrenching sorrow, a soul-crushing despair, that paralyzes and drains her of all energy, from which there is no escape.

The world is empty: the town breaks into tears, the rain refuses to stop, the sun itself refuses to shine, and the storm won't let up. All conspires to weigh heavily on her devastated inner being, extinguishing all hope for a brighter day.

The young woman decides to do something for her own salvation, hoping against hope that when the young man comes back she will be able to unload her burden of sorrow and hurt on him. To that effect she collects all her pains into her heart, which is now weighed down by a kind of immense, all-encompassing cosmic gloom.

When the young man returns, she will trade each strand of her web of pain for a word in a poem, each "sliver" of sadness for a line of verse, each strand of pain for a strand of poetry.

Using these ingredients, she will put together a web of love, which binds the young man in a cocoon, from which there is no escape. He will now belong to her only. The resulting union is both spiritual and physical.

From now on the young woman and her lover are no longer two.

II. Diction and Style

Let's go over Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang's poem to discover the poetic quality, the romantic element, the feelings and the wonderfully rich creativity of a poet endowed with great sensitivity, and her uncanny, profound and frightening ability to penetrate the inner core of a lonely woman's heart.

Once she unfolds the setting in which the young man is away on a trip, Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang employs a descriptive technique using only concise and terse phrases to evoke the desolate scene of a lifeless world.

The town just droops with lots of tears.
The sun, too, does not the clouds part,
Violent sudden storm appears.
The rain keeps falling all day long,...

In only four verses consisting of twenty words (in the original), Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang was able to conjure up an extremely gloomy atmosphere. The violent forces of nature, storms and rains, are raging while the benign forces of hope and light simply "refuse" to spring into action to dispel the gloom. It is as if the sun has entered into a conspiratorial pact with the dark forces to create a hopeless situation for the lonely maid.

All the despondent feelings, she gathers them in a repository, and discards none of the "slivers" of sorrow. This depository is none other than her own heart. Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang uses a concrete image to refer to an abstract but real feeling. And each sad feeling is likened to a sliver, such as a sliver of thread, for example. Again this is an instance of the same technique of using a concrete object to symbolize an abstraction. This is a technique that Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang has indisputably mastered.

Let us look into the tone Sóng Viet-Ðàm Giang sets, the tone of the voice of the suffering maiden who loves with a passion. The verses below show that the young aggrieved woman in love has only a mild reproach for her lover. There is not a trace of bitterness, not a scintilla of spite. Instead a gentle charming sense of humor shines through.

Keep them in my bosom distraught
When you come back after your rounds.

I'll sell them not to any one,
Only to you, my dear, so you
Can see and have what I have done:

Yes, she hoards all her sorrows in order to "sell" them. The word "sell" is a very astonishing innovation of Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang's. How could any one sell her own intimate sorrows in public? And the tone of "sell not to any one" carries tenderness without bitterness or reproach. The young man need not worry. She will "sell," i.e., reveal, only to him. In what way? One "strand" or "sliver" of sorrow at a time. Not to drown him in a cascade of sorrows but one "sliver" at a time so as not to overwhelm his consciousness. This is symbolic of her tender loving care, almost akin to the maternal instinct to protect and nurture.

The last four verses encapsulate all the ingredients for use in building up toward a climax that is infinitely poetic.

With that I'll weave a web of love
Around you, dear, to bind all you
Around all me, and be just one,
Just one for me and no one else.

Let us pause for a moment at the line "With that I'll weave a web of love,"and focus on the manner in which Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang erects a poem with just five (original) words. Each feeling of love is a thread that when woven together will form a web of love, and her love is nothing less than an entire poem. How more poetic can this treatment be?

And the young woman simply wants to possess her lover in a marvelously gentle way, not violently, but by using the web of love to wrap around him and around her too, to form one indivisible whole, flesh blended into flesh. Such a supremely masterful sleight of hand in poetic imagery could only spring from the magically fertile and creative mind of Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang.

To build up to the climax of the poem, Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang springs a surprise statement:

Just one for me and no one else.

totally unexpected because so far Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang seems to be very generous by not having the young woman tie her lover inexorably to her single-minded absolute love. In the end, however, the young woman shows that after so many incidents in her life, she simply cannot afford to share her hard-earned bliss with anyone else.

III. Conclusion

A Load of Sorrows, while carrying a message of love, gives the reader a rare opportunity to probe the inner self of a woman in love fighting loneliness.

The poem demonstrates a highly refined skill in recounting a love story, and an efficacious capacity to grab the reader from the very first word of the poem, and to carry her across each verse through to the end. Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang arouses the reader's emotions and does not let go until the last word. The reader is taken by the poet on a magic carpet voyage into the inner recesses of a woman's heart. And she succeeds in doing so. When released back into reality, the reader will have traversed an emotional landscape of love that leaves an indelible imprint in her heart and psyche.

Therein lies the incomparable gift of Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang.

22 December 2002