During the rainy season, the river water swirls and becomes murky. The water hyacinths also disintegrate, carried away by the rushing water, no longer forming clusters of flowers that lie leisurely in bloom. During this season, the children only dare to watch the water flow endlessly towards the estuary.
The Western girl with a voice as sweet and clear as the early morning sun, sat and enthusiastically told about the memories that had just passed by on the river in front of her. The small river, similar to many rivers along the length of the country, associated with this rice-growing agriculture. Childhood swimming, bathing, catching crickets, flying kites, herding buffalo across the river in the late afternoon sun,... So many stories imprinted on the days, by her small river. She was born by that river, and until she became a mother of children, she was still attached to the small hamlet by the river. Her face lit up when recalling her childhood memories, but her eyes seemed to flash with regret, because everything was no longer the same, even the river next to her house. The regret seemed to pour into me, murky on a silvery moonlit night.
How many children were born by the rivers? Then absorbed the taste of fish, shrimp, mussels, clams in the alluvial water, forming their figures? There must be many. The river quality is unmistakable if you sit attentively beside them and listen to their conversation. After a long talk, they will inevitably tell “old stories”, stories that have just happened, but seem to have been centuries old. The river flows, people grow up with the years. Old stories remain as memories. Children born from the river region are generous and open-hearted like the hearts of the rivers, full of alluvial soil after each storm and flood season.
Someone once compared the life of a river to the life of a human being. It starts from the source, creating a flow, then crosses high mountains and deep valleys, flows down to the plains, and finally merges into the ocean. On the arduous journey of a river, there are parts that have to wind and twist through rapids, and parts that are calm and leisurely flowing on the fields. In places with rapids, the river creates beautiful scenery; in flat places, the river gives fish and shrimp, the river deposits alluvium to form lush rice fields that feed thousands of generations. History has recorded the most brilliant civilizations of mankind in the basins of large rivers. Aren't those the most beautiful proofs of a river's life? A river's life is always months and days of endless flow, bringing cool water to trees and crops. A river that stops flowing will be a dead river, with no intrinsic value, and will erase its own name. Perhaps that is why rivers work diligently day and night, sometimes quiet, sometimes fierce, sometimes gentle, sometimes violent, creating endlessly circulating flows.
The rainy and stormy season returns every year. For generations, people have clung to the river, for so many lives, they have been happy and sad with the river. The sound of the fishermen's gongs tapping the sides of their boats still echoes in the "shrimp at dusk, fish at dawn" times. The rivers, like the heart of a kind mother, struggle through the stormy and flood season, to then deposit more alluvium on the banks. From the banks, rice, corn, sweet potatoes, and cassava are green again, filling many paths of life with hope. From the banks, the seasons of flowers and dates bloom passionately like the gentle morning sun. From the banks, kites carry the sound of flutes whistling in the green layer, the gentle breeze drifting in the afternoon.
I sat on this side of the Po Co River, absorbed in watching the dugout canoe slowly move along the other side of the river, at dusk. The other side of the river is your country. The river is the boundary between the two countries. I saw the fisherman on the dugout canoe, just like all the people who make a living on the river that I have met. The same quick movements of dropping the net, pulling the net, the same rhythmic tapping of the oars on the side of the boat. This side of the river is my country, the other side of the river is another country. But surely the river does not know that it is carrying that “boundary” mission. It keeps flowing through rapids, through fields, through the months and years, then collecting alluvium to build up the banks, then giving birth to more fish, shrimp, and fragrant herbs like a mother’s heart.
Stories about the fragmented rivers. The river where I was born. The cool river of May that soothed me through the rugged and unpredictable bends. The river that naturally flows against the flow with the final desire to merge with the sea. The river of my childhood in the West poured into me on a regretful, muddy moonlit night… How can I remember all the named and unnamed rivers that I have encountered on many journeys? Perhaps, what remains in me are the diligent flows day and night, sometimes quiet, sometimes fierce, sometimes gentle, sometimes violent. It is the constant rotation that creates the rivers that flow forever.
Article: Dao An Duyen
Illustration: Trung Ha - Nguyen Books
