The Gift in Wartime

I offer you roses
Buried in your new grave
I offer you my wedding gown
To cover your tomb still green with grass.

You give me medals
Together with silver stars
And the yellow pips on your badge
Unused and still shining.

I offer you my youth
The days we were still in love
My youth died away
When they told me the bad news.

You give me the smell of blood
From your war dress
Your blood and your enemy’s
So that I may be moved.

I offer you clouds
That linger on my eyes on summer days
I offer you cold winters
Amid my springtime of life.

You give me your lips with no smile
You give me your arms without tenderness
You give me your eyes with no sight
And your motionless body.

Seriously, I apologize to you
I promise to meet you in our next life
I will hold this shrapnel as a token
By which we will recognize each other.

              – Tran Mong Tu (translated by Vann Phan)

GLOSSARY

tomb (n.): grave
pips (n.): military badges of rank worn on the shoulder
tenderness (n.): a feeling of concern, gentle affection or warmth
apologize (v.): say sorry for doing something wrong
shrapnel (n.): fragments scattered from exploding bombs

Summary plus Interpretation

The poem “The Gift in Wartime” by a Vietnamese poet Tran Mong Tu is about a woman’s painful experience and feelings when the news of her husband’s death in the battlefield is brought to her. Suggestively, it is about one of the ill-consequences of war, especially from the perspective of women as victims.

The speaker in the poem is a young woman who has just lost her husband to the war. [Here it is the Vietnam War (1954-1975)]. She says she offers roses and her wedding gown as her gifts to her husband lying dead in his tomb while she gets medals and badges from him. This symbolic exchange of gifts is very painful. The roses and the wedding gown are the valuables that the woman no more needs now, whereas, the medals and the badges are the valuables that her husband no more needs now. When she mentions the exchange of such gifts, she is actually satirizing the painful experience she undergoes during this immediate hours after the death of her soldier husband.

She further says that she offers her youth and days of love to her husband in exchange for the bad news that came with the smell of blood from his war dress. She offers clouds and cold winters, for her springtime of life has already ended, whereas, she gets from her dead husband lips without smile, arms without tenderness, eyes without sight, and the body without motion.

Finally, she apologizes – we are not sure for what; may be, she is contemplating suicide – and promises that she would meet her husband in their next life, still holding the shrapnel as a token of love by which her husband would recognize her. One cannot be certain about whether humans can have the next life, but here all the idea serves to do is give her some consolation at this great moment of grief.