I sadly sew the silence – Poetry from Vietnam
Hoang Viet Hang, eminent poetess from the land of Blue Dragon shares her five poems
I sadly sew the silence, neither the shirt nor the needle! I sew falling leaves like embroidery
I sadly sew the silence
I sadly sew the silence
Neither the shirt nor the needle
I sew falling leaves like embroidery
I sew in gall and ironic grin
I sew the white hair instead of words
For every bow is an exhaustive pain
Your children, you ex-wife and your paddy field
I married you and also engaged with your every sorrow
Your words are rainbow spectrums
But your ex-love remains a secret to me
One day when there’s a fresh wind
Will you hurriedly and mercilessly abandon all to return home?
For reunion with your relatives and your pals
Leaving me suffer, leaving me dying
Have you ever dreamt of abandoning?
And having an affair with such enormously nourishing land
Taking you out of thoughts, I greet the down
I wrote these poems and leave all behind
One day when I go old, the sky is yet to close
When raising our children is yet a must
One day in a serene moon light
There I sadly sew all my life’s winters
Reason for a lotus to bound
In such a lake, two lotuses thrive
One tiredly bounds
Seems about to cry
In the bud it hides
Tears that have dried, unseen
Into the mud that brown, petals, descend
There, the blush pink it carries
How long can it remain intact?
Growing lotus amid treacherous life
Though in deep mud, it sinks
Still, one tiredly bounds
In deep mud, seems already cried
Who drew withered flowers, had passed away
His image thou, in the lotus there lie
They knew it all, do papers and water color
You painted me by tears
Erase or not to erase
How on earth, could papers and pens
Erase a name, an email address
Only a press of delete to erase for eternity
But heart argues
There’s no way to erase such a good man
Perhaps he is now smiling
In a pagoda’s corner, far away from the town
So quiet, oh how quiet
Only the dried leaves knocking at its front door
People there seldom fire it up
Fire up the old, decrepit oil lamp in a late rainy afternoon
A Pouteria Lucama there secretly thrives
I search for till its plain white
I light up to save such flower from lonesome
There, the monk silhouette falling into the end of Tam Quan door
Can we ever erase the kindness of the mankind?
Of someone who restlessly devote
Whose body burnt to ashes but not moles of time?
Within my soul of every sorrow/sadness and solitary
That one takes me to the moon light
I burned your love poem
Indeed, I had burnt all the poems
That you had given me in my twenties, broken moon
The poems hold its breath, starring at the ashes
Learn by heart every six-eight poems and hide in heart
I shall not keep the love poems in the shelves
For Othello – my husband, his love is way brutal
Gotta burnt them all
Moss or the one I used to know
You slip off the moon light
To other day
Moss or I
Shall not let this fate gloomed
Splendid moon
Luminously poured into the autumn rain
No artifact
No museum, yet to withhold
I have none
Even the old love poems
But the drizzling winter wind to carry …
To add up the two
Thirty thousand what says you?
A hundred thousand for overnight!
They are bargaining down the wharf
The gravel bearer and fish selling lady
Day by day, from the morning star
Till the new moon rises
All he need is to get closer
To add up two bodies
They need no glue
Cause once the night is gone
They have to walk away
They have to walk their own ways
Night by night
The gravel bearer of the Nua wharf
Has no clue after every bargain
The selling fish lady in market
That once stuck to his body
That once crazy for living
Now has gone to another river
The eulogy there he starts
Bargaining the wind
“Fifty thousand what say you?”
Then cries
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Translated into English by Vo Hoang Long
