Our mother has been digging for a score Of years: her head of black grows white. But still her shovels work by night: The clanking of her spades and cannon gore. Throughout our country’s twenty years of war, Our heavy digging’s buried love within. Like a rampart runs her tunnel floors That guard our every step therein. Vast our native land The enemy can’t win, And mother’s heart so grand Whole armies hide beneath the ground. Her cave’s the brightest place around, For here shines bright the strength of Vietnam Beneath the bombs. Now Americans invade our mother, But silently for battle she has planned. With ever whiter hair she’s crowned. With ever deeper wounds and scars, Beneath the stars She excavates her heart out of the ground. Our countless armies charge up from this heart of ours. The enemy is rash, Not knowing in an instant we can clash. Vast our native land And mother’s heart so grand. September 1967
Bùi Minh Quốc (b. 1940) is a Vietnamese poet whose poem “Has It Ever" was voted one of the 100 best Vietnamese poems of the 20th century. After serving as editor of The Journal of Quang Homeland and founding a newspaper, he was expelled by the Communist Party for demanding freedom of the press, for which he was placed under house arrest.
J. R. Forman’s work has appeared in Borderlands, West Branch, Talking River, Perceptions, SLAB, The Round, Brief Wilderness, Press Pause, Stirring, Matter, Streetlight, Visitant, Make It New, Glint, Agave, and anthologies by Clemson University. He holds a BA from St. John’s College and PhDs from the University of Dallas and the University of Salamanca.
