Sắc màu tháng Tư...

(Baonghean) - It seems that few people can resist the fresh beauty of spring flowers, but for us kids back then, April was the most wonderful and warmly welcomed time. April of sunshine, wind and clouds…

April awakens gentle yet individual flowers. Those are the pure pink lotus buds that suddenly “shake off the mud and stand up”, spreading their fragrance in the middle of the village pond. Even the clumps of wallflowers on the porch of every house shyly show off their thin petals, fluttering with butterflies and bees. The purple Lagerstroemia and red Royal Poinciana also do not care about the urging of spring, waiting for each warm ray of April sunlight to shine into the axils of the leaves before stretching out and opening their buds. The colors of April are so sparkling not only because of the leaves but also because of the blush on the cheeks of the village girls, the fluttering red and green of the last warm blankets that mothers hang out to dry before putting away…

Illustration: Hong Toai

April comes with a bustling sound. The white-whiskered bulbuls chirp to announce the ripe guava season, inviting starlings, wagtails, woodpeckers, and ducks to chirp from branch to branch. The old bamboo bushes also happily chirp to greet each gust of wind. In the distance, someone's young rooster crows loudly, setting the pace for the whole chorus of cicadas to be lively all day and night. The most memorable is the longing, yearning call of the cuckoo from the distant fields, signaling the arrival of summer. We children are as happy as Tet, eagerly welcoming the season of ripe fruit. The scent of ripe guava, ripe chay, pineapple, jujube, ripe custard apple... permeates the whole summer.

April returns, awakening innocent childhood memories for those far from home. The April sun dries the mud in the dirt yard so that children have a place to run and play. The April wind blows strongly to lift kites high in the air every afternoon. Remembering the days of driving buffaloes to the fields, each child had a small kite in their hand, made of bamboo ribs, covered with newspaper or cement, with a long tail like a stingray. Then, bareheaded and barefoot, they ran along the dike to see whose kite flew the highest and most beautiful. When tired, they would leisurely rest their heads on the grass and tell jokes, seeing poverty and hunger somewhere far away...

I remember those summer afternoons when I ran away from my mother and chased after a lot of dragonflies. It seemed that April was the season of dragonflies. I don’t know where the dragonflies and damselflies came from, flocking to perch on the rows of hibiscus and chrysanthemums. When I was six years old, I believed the words of the old men Tam Tit and Ti Xoan who lived next door, and searched the whole garden to catch a dragonfly, gritting my teeth and letting the dragonfly bite me until my belly button turned red because I believed that doing so would help me learn to swim. That afternoon, I excitedly jumped into the irrigation culvert near my house, in front of the surprised eyes of my friends, only to stumble and drink my fill of water before Phi grabbed my hair and dragged me to shore. After that incident, I was angry with my friends for a whole month and avoided swimming in rivers and ponds. So, even though my house was near the river, I was the only one in the neighborhood who couldn’t swim…

April brings with it memories of school days before the farewell, and of the lingering words left unsaid to a classmate as graduation day approaches. So nostalgic, so excited… April.

Phan Ha Long