Lotus scent...

(Baonghean) - This is the lotus season, in my hometown the lotus ponds must be in the harvest season. The lotus ponds are large, seven ponds surrounding the village look very beautiful. So when the lotus season comes, my whole village seems to be scented.

Waking up in the morning, opening the door wide, the sunlight and the scent of lotus flowers flooded into the house, creating a strangely peaceful and serene feeling. My grandmother often sat by the bamboo bed, chewing betel leaves, looking out at the lotus pond with sad eyes. I teased her, "Do you miss your grandfather?". She smiled and said, "Dad, you're old, why do you miss him anymore? But in the old days, every lotus season, he rowed the boat at dawn, picking lotus buds for her to brew tea." She said and sighed, the sound of her sigh was very fragile, I suddenly felt so sorry for her lotus seasons...

The lotus ponds in my hometown have not changed much over the years. The lotus blooms and then fades, the lotus season ends and the white storks stand alone in the pond, making me feel sad and lonely. When the lotus blooms, I often dive into the pond with my friends, inhaling the cool scent. Sometimes, on cool days, I row a boat out to the middle of the pond and take a peaceful nap. Only when my grandmother lets my cousin row a boat out to call me do I return. When I grow up and become a young woman, I no longer dare to sleep in the lotus pond, but there is always a large vase of lotus flowers in the window near the head of my bed. Wherever the girls in my village go, everyone knows them, their hair smells fragrant with lotus, easily captivating people's hearts. They pick up a handful of fragrant tea soaked in lotus pistils, gently making a pot of tea to serve guests. So my hometown, despite the hard work in the fields, still retains its own elegant beauty.

Illustration photo - internet source.

Lotus season, flower carts carry flowers to faraway markets, wherever they go the wind follows. Mother sells lotus in bunches, almost everyone she meets buys them regardless of whether it is the full moon or the first day of the lunar month. Sometimes when she meets an acquaintance from a neighboring village, Mother gives lotus flowers to bring home and put them on the altar for the ancestors to enjoy a bit of the precious fragrance of the world. Many times the youngest child grumbles to his mother, "Why does it take so long to pick a bunch of lotus flowers, but you keep giving them to me?" Mother smiles and says, "Lotus is not something to be bought or sold. Giving them to each other is precious, my child. There is only one season each year."

When my sister reached the age of marriage, she insisted on getting married during the lotus season. Before the day of the bride's departure, she bathed in warm water and sprinkled a few pink lotus petals. The lotus became the wedding flower, and lotus petals also appeared on the groom's chest. When the bride was brought to the village entrance, where the lotus pond was in full bloom, she asked to stop and look at the pond for a long time and then cried. No one understood why she cried, only I knew that her unfinished first love was tied to the lotus seasons. She must be wondering, now that she belongs to someone else, where is her old love? Just that much is enough to make me sad...

I am far away, missing my hometown, the well, the communal house roof and the scent of lotus. The afternoon of West Lake in lotus season is still not enough to ease my longing. Where is the scene of my mother rowing the boat every early morning to pick each quintessence of Vietnam to make tea for my grandmother? Where is the peaceful scene where I used to sleep soundly in the middle of a lotus pond on a quiet afternoon? Where is the tears of my sister on the day of her wedding, where is the piece of the soul of the countryside with the fragrant black hair...

Vu Thi Huyen Trang