B
Belinda T
Guest
Can you please help me answer a couple of questions based on the following poem? I’ve been struggling with it for a very long time because English is my second language and I’m trying very hard to learn it. Thanks.
Thoughts of Hanoi
by
Nguyen Thi Vinh
The night is deep and chill
as in early autumn. Pitchblack,
it thickens after each lightning flash.
I dream of Hanoi:
5- Co-ngu Road
ten years of separation
the way back sliced by a frontier of hatred.
I want to bury the past
to burn the future
10- still I yean
still I fear
those endless nights
waiting for dawn.
Brother,
15- how is Hang Dao now?
How is Ngoc Son temple?
Do the trains still run
each day from Hanoi
to the neighboring towns?
20- To Bac-ninh, Cam-giang, Yen-bai,
the small villages, islands
of brown thatch in a lush green sea?
The girls
bright eyes
ruddy cheeks
four-piece dresses
raven-bill scarves
sowing harvesting
25- spinning weaving
all year round,
the boys
plowing
transplanting
in the fields
in their shops
running across
the meadow at evening
to fly kites
30- and sing alternating songs.'
Stainless blue sky,
jubilant voices of children
stumbling through the alphabet,
village graybeards strolling to the temple,
grandmothers basking in twilight sun,
chewing betel leaves'
while the children run-
35- Brother,
how is all that now?
Or is it obsolete?
Are you like me,
reliving the past,
40- imagining the future?
Do you count me as a friend
or am I the enemy in your eyes?
Brother, I am afraid
that one day I'll be with the March-North Army
45- meeting you on your way to the South.
I might be the one to shoot you then
or you me
but please
not with hatred.
50- For don't you remember how it was,
you and I in school together,
plotting our lives together?
Those roots go deep!
Brother, we are men,
55- conscious of more
than material needs.
How can this happen to us
my friend
my foe?
1) What do you think is Nguyen’s purpose for including images of Hanoi before the war? What is the effect of these images set against her thoughts about the war?
Thoughts of Hanoi
by
Nguyen Thi Vinh
The night is deep and chill
as in early autumn. Pitchblack,
it thickens after each lightning flash.
I dream of Hanoi:
5- Co-ngu Road
ten years of separation
the way back sliced by a frontier of hatred.
I want to bury the past
to burn the future
10- still I yean
still I fear
those endless nights
waiting for dawn.
Brother,
15- how is Hang Dao now?
How is Ngoc Son temple?
Do the trains still run
each day from Hanoi
to the neighboring towns?
20- To Bac-ninh, Cam-giang, Yen-bai,
the small villages, islands
of brown thatch in a lush green sea?
The girls
bright eyes
ruddy cheeks
four-piece dresses
raven-bill scarves
sowing harvesting
25- spinning weaving
all year round,
the boys
plowing
transplanting
in the fields
in their shops
running across
the meadow at evening
to fly kites
30- and sing alternating songs.'
Stainless blue sky,
jubilant voices of children
stumbling through the alphabet,
village graybeards strolling to the temple,
grandmothers basking in twilight sun,
chewing betel leaves'
while the children run-
35- Brother,
how is all that now?
Or is it obsolete?
Are you like me,
reliving the past,
40- imagining the future?
Do you count me as a friend
or am I the enemy in your eyes?
Brother, I am afraid
that one day I'll be with the March-North Army
45- meeting you on your way to the South.
I might be the one to shoot you then
or you me
but please
not with hatred.
50- For don't you remember how it was,
you and I in school together,
plotting our lives together?
Those roots go deep!
Brother, we are men,
55- conscious of more
than material needs.
How can this happen to us
my friend
my foe?
1) What do you think is Nguyen’s purpose for including images of Hanoi before the war? What is the effect of these images set against her thoughts about the war?