The Sad Smile of Summer
By Phan Tan Hai
Fifty years—sitting and remembering
a youth shattered by turmoil;
dreams still stunned with disbelief—
marching in the streets, burning cars, protesting.
Seeing my father hanging from a bridge,
seeing myself with a torn hat, begging;
seeing my mother weeping through a century,
seeing the sky emptied of a thousand birds.
Fifty years—never truly sleeping,
staring at history, eyes wide;
Nha Trang, Pleiku, Ðà N?ng—
night after night my hair turned white in the mirror.
Sunlight still falls on the old schoolyard,
dust dimming the faces of friends;
why should beauty grieve in storm season—
midnight, counting drops of rain.
Fifty years—dream or reality,
reading books by a flickering lamp;
touching life and feeling it break,
shaping a statue that never becomes whole.
Reading books, dreaming of peace for the world,
calling for gentle winds and kind clouds;
the monochord from school days—
blood still oozing from my fingertips.
Fifty years—friends from the Philosophy Group
carrying a mother’s lullaby into life;
writing verses of horses crying in the night,
mourning a history deaf, mute, and blind.
The midnight horn of the seventh lunar month,
pouring wine to send off wandering souls;
waiting for dawn in repentance,
vowing my life to be a tower of incense.
Fifty years—looking back,
sutras copied, tears blurring the page;
a thousand lifetimes drifting, still grateful to the Buddha,
sending all sorrow away with the falling rain.
History passes—its tragic river,
the conch shell’s call, the wandering troupe;
I kneel before the Buddhas of three times,
vowing my life to shine like a mirror.
--- This poem is dedicated to the writer Le Lac Giao and the members of the Philosophy Study Group at the Saigon Faculty of Letters, commemorating the 50th anniversary of their first meeting (1970–2020). Most of the group members have since devoted themselves to the study of the Dharma under the guidance of the Tibetan Temple in Binh Duong, Vietnam. This piece also serves as the Afterword for Le Lac Giao’s short story collection, "The Sad Smile of Summer".
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