Dad's Lullaby

My father, an old soldier who emerged from the years of war, never told long stories about the war. He did not mention the hardships, did not talk about the near-death experiences, did not talk about his comrades who had fallen in the deep forest... But every night, he often lulled me to sleep with revolutionary poems, heroic and powerful, resounding in the small house:

“Hooray for the liberation army/ Salute to you, the most beautiful man!/ History kisses you with a barefooted boy/ Living indomitably and uprightly in the world/ Like Thach Sanh of the 20th century…” (excerpt from “Spring Song 68” - To Huu).

My father's voice was low and slow, sometimes echoing from the past, sometimes whispering only to me. When I was little, I didn't understand why my father recited such poems. I only knew that there was something strange in my father's voice - gentle and profound, but also full of resilience. It wasn't as soft as my mother's lullabies, but it had the power of an underground river flowing forever inside me.

That night, like many other times, my father read poetry to me. But this time, his voice was slower, deeper, as if filled with some kind of sadness. “He fell on the runway of Tan Son Nhat / But he struggled to stand up, leaning his gun on the helicopter’s body / And he died while standing and shooting / His blood sprayed along with the rainbow of bullets” (excerpt from “Vietnam’s Posture” - Le Anh Xuan).

Dad suddenly choked. I saw his hand grip the edge of the blanket tightly, his eyes distant, as if he was seeing something that did not belong to the present. Something inside him had just risen, a memory, a longing that could not be named. A very soft sigh, then he fell silent. In that moment, I just silently looked at him, looked at his shoulders that were no longer young, but still as strong as the old days. His eyes were slightly sad, his voice trembled slightly: "My comrades... some of them also fell like that"...

Growing up, I realized that the poems my father read were not just words, but also memories. Those were the nights of marching in the deep forest, where soldiers gave each other warmth through memorized poems. Those were the days of hunger and cold, when just hearing a poem made me feel more determined. And those were my father's dreams - dreams of peace, of a day of return, where he could lull me to sleep with the very poems that kept him steadfast through the years of war.

My father's poems taught me about the sacrifice and resilience of Uncle Ho's soldiers. From the poems, I understood that this country was built not only by sweat, but also by the blood and bones of many generations.

I have loved poetry since I did not know when. Perhaps because I had fallen asleep to my father's poems since I was a child, poetry naturally flowed into my mind like an endless source. I wrote my first poems, although they were still clumsy, but my father still read them, still smiled, still nodded as if he was listening to his own lullaby from a very long time ago.

Now that my father is old, I am the one who reads poetry to him. I read old poems, the ones he used to lull me to sleep. Poems that have followed him throughout his life.

I suddenly realized that lullabies never disappear. They are only passed from generation to generation, like a smoldering fire that burns forever, to keep warm the souls that love and remember their roots.

Hello love, season 4, theme "Father" officially launched from December 27, 2024 on four types of press and digital infrastructure of Radio - Television and Binh Phuoc Newspaper (BPTV), promising to bring to the public the wonderful values of sacred and noble fatherly love.
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Source: https://baobinhphuoc.com.vn/news/19/170927/loi-ru-cua-ba