Nguyen Lu Thu Hong
Born in February 9, 1992 in Bien Ho commune, Pleiku city, Gia Lai province, Vietnam, she graduated from Faculty of Literature, Quy Nhon University, majoring in Pedagogy in 2013. Currently she lives and working in Gia Lai province. Her poetry works published in Military Art, Song Huong magazine, Writer and Life magazine, Letters and Arts Newspaper, Ho Chi Minh City’s letters and arts weekly magazine, Army and People newspaper, Tien Phong newspaper, Youth newspaper, Knowledge magazine. She is member of Gia Lai Association of Literature and Arts. Her published books are: Poetry collection “Wake up in the morning” (Vietnam Writers’ Association Publishing House, 2017); Essays collection “Waiting for fog in the middle of the street” (Army and People Publishing House, 2020).
NIGHT IN THE MOUNTAIN
When the knuckles no longer knew where to wave
Then the moon fell asleep in the old light
A day turned into smoke
On this high land
The night’s warmth was thin as mythical
But the cold was so thick
Now just only us
Proud and lonely
Like a house without a number
Oh which candle stayed?
Let me burn the winter, winter
And the winters
Mountains were still mountains, silently
Called me to the delirious verses
Told story with silent alphabets.
***
STONE MOUNTAIN
The one who promised to go to the mountains
To see pine trees light up leaves in the afternoon
When memories showed on the sunset and felt asleep
We existed as a waiting stone
The smell of the dry sun tanned into the mountain skin
Many years the water flowed over the bridge
So loose but so bumpy
There was a stream, but the mountain burned without pain
When you came back, the stone would turn gray
In the memories in the forest of youth
Purple afternoon, purple jamelonier branch
We hoped to find in the bottom of the plateau’s eyes
The night dew was pouring, the rock was freezing cold
The mountain steam at night blew around my heart
Watching the living things turned in the two seasons of clear – muddy
On its own, the rock only had winter.
***
***
SUMMER NIGHTS
Wouldn’t solve anything
If we both keep quiet
Love was not a river
To be lost to the sea
We were
Not incarnations of rotten wood
So that
Courage to be silent
When the darkness… got darker
Summer doors had a fever
We convulsed in the flashback
A cold dream
It was late
It was always too late to wake up
Even if only dreams were true
The world was a mystery
Like a distant poem
Just kept quiet,
Had not to tell a lie
Please, darkness
Washed heart from the summer side…
***
TOMORROW
Then the fever was gentle
On the skin
Cells were full of mysteries
The virus began to be lonely
Trembled itself
It would be forgotten
Numbers were as cold as ice
Like those who gone and left graves for those who stayed
When the sunset was on fire
I bowed my head
Waited to see the stars
Twenty-four hours to understand my fate
Twenty-four hours floated
Nodded to remember a trip
I suddenly grew old in my imagination.
***
ANOTHER EMTPY AFTERNOON
The trees bowed their heads and waited
Street went to the end of summer
Still green on a sunny day
Blended into the sparse roofs
The day you never came
I bowed my head to hear the broken afternoon
I pretended to be so gentle
Went through the thing I have got – lost the human place
You hid behind the cold leaf season
Afternoon went to the heart of the city
I turned old in every look
My presence
Just made the afternoon street emptier…
***
THE DAY CRANES FLY
I came here on a trip
Cloudy highland
Thousands of clouds flew and touched the hair
White a life of tolerance
Then the full moon night, I dreamed
Mother’s shadow followed the moon
The world became an inn
Sent people back for a hundred years
I cried in the blue sky
Begged to come and hug mother’s hair
Made a delicate rose
Cried when I was lonely
Mother sent sadness to the land
White cranes flew away
I – the wild flower
Lost the sun.
***
ANOTHER SPRING LEFT AWAY WHEN WE’RE SLEEPING
After zero hours, it was still night
Passers-by did not chant
The sound of insects prayed for peace in the moon
By the winds of January
Who built fire in the night?
Let the smoke intoxicated the old glaze
Another spring left while I felt asleep
Sudden thirsted for the moon like a poet thirsted for loneliness
No one poured me a glass of clear white wine
To burned the fierce to be peaceful, to turned the bitter into sweet
Well then wrote a verse to testify
That I softened my lips
The moon tightened in the night a mirror looks
Listened to the heart fluttering in the old windy area
I had made an oath, but time didn’t keep me as green as grass
Then I blushed and waited in the night of the full moon…
_________________
(Translated into English by JyKhanh)
