answer: "thoughts of hanoi" is a poem about remembering the past and foretelling the future. in the first three lines, “the night is deep and chill as in early autumn. pitchblack, it thickens after each lightning flash.” the author is giving us a clear imagery of the atmosphere surrounding a war; dark and cold.
“co-ngu road ten years of separation the way back sliced by a frontier of hatred.” in this line, “frontier of hatred” is stating the border between the north and south vietnam where countrymen fight amongst themselves.
the author says: “i want to bury the past to burn the future still i yearn still i fear those endless nights waiting for dawn.” meaning he/she wants to erase the past so that the future he/she fears will not come but still somehow yearns for it.
“brother, how is hang dao now? how is ngoc son temple? do the trains still run to the neighboring towns? to bac-ninh, cam-giang, yen-bai, the small villages, islands of brown thatch in a lush green sea? ” in these lines we can see how the speaker is very familiar with the north and it’s neighboring small towns. it also tells us that in a time before the war, he/she was from the north.
“the girls bright eyes ruddy cheeks four-piece dresses raven-bill scarves sowing harvesting spinning weaving all year round, the boys plowing transplanting in the fields in their shops running across the meadow at evening to fly kites and sing alternating songs. stainless blue sky, jubilant voices of children stumbling through the alphabet, village graybeards strolling to the temple, grandmothers basking in the twilight sun, chewing betel leaves while the children run—“ in these lines the speaker is reminiscing the past, a time in his/her village before the war where the children only worried about playing and learning and the adults only went to pray and relax.
“brother, how is all that now? or is it obsolete? are you like me, reliving the past, imagining the future? ” in these lines the speaker is asking the person he calls a “brother” if all that has changed now and if he’s also like him/her, wanting to live again in a peaceful village like the past and fearing the future.
“do you count me as a friend or am i the enemy in your eyes? brother, i am afraid that one day i’ll be with the march-north army meeting you on your way to the south.” these lines tell us that the speaker is now among the people who fight for the south and his brother for the north.
“i might be the one to shoot you then or you me but not with hatred.” these lines give us a strong imagery of the gravity of a civil war; the possibility of brothers, friends and family fighting against each other against their own free-will.
“for don’t you remember how it was, you and i in school together, plotting our lives together? those roots go deep! brother, we are men, conscious of more than material needs. how can this happen to us my friend my foe? ” in the final lines, the speaker is asking “brother” that when the time comes that they will be facing each other in the battle field, although they will be forced to shoot each other, he should not forget everything they’ve been through since they were friends after all before the war.
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