This dance must flare up to extinguish the flames of war!
Khue Anh, a poetess from Vietnam, the Land of Blue Dragon, shares her poems
Born in 1964, Nguyen Mai Anh is a poet from Vietnam. She writes with penname Khue Anh. Based in Ha Dong, Hanoi, Vietnam, she has Master’s degree in Pharmacy and currently is lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine, Thanh Dong University, Hai Duong city, Vietnam.
The dance calling for peace
Come on darling, let’s step on the dance floor
Your skin radiates like the stars
Come darling, come here and sow happiness
This dance echoes like drunken waves.
Let youth be twirling with vitality
Your lips smile like the moon shining for millions of green years
We can’t allow a single moment of gloomy cloud in our hearts
For countless things are thirsty brightly.
Not just you, not just me
Not just the two of us blooming like flowers
You sway with joyous songs of the wind from all directions
Your dress billowing.
I’m not a talented handsome young man
You are a thousand young girls in their youth
Oh, the mountains!
Oh, the rivers!
And the oceans from all continents sing the song
Calling for green peace across the green planet!
You are so beautiful after the golden rice harvest days
And a strong brother because of the saltiness of the sea
We flourish because we are Earth’s children
This dance must flare up to extinguish the flames of war!
This dance must flare up to extinguish the flames of war!
This dance must flare up to extinguish the flames of war!
***
My mother in law
My Mother,
Dreamed of Phoenix wings (*)
Seeing the betel leaves, her daughter’s wedding
My Mother,
Picked up roses in the garden
Hallucinated her husband’s voice in the early mist.
My Mother,
Beneath her conical hat, against the sun’s fierce glare
Gleaned pieces of scattered potatoes in the bomb field.
My Mother,
Till dusk’s late call,
She devoted each day to her in-laws.
My Mother,
Smiled and wept with the clouds,
Wondering if her husband’s figure was in gun smoke?
It rained so long that bubbles formed (**)
My Mother knitted the wind,
Toiled the fields to weave her children’s dawn.
The war
Lasted for a whole century.
Its relentless waves crashed my Mother’s nights.
Ninety years have passes by,
Even her clothes shared her wrinkles.
Who could count the traces of time surrounding her eyes?
Since when…
Did memories become so vague?
Only I remain, my tears blurring her censer.
Her footprints
Imprinted every step of mine,
And her unwavering love still immersed in the impermanence of life!
(*) Betel leaves shaped Phoenix wings: Traditional procedure in Vietnamese wedding party.
(**) Folk poetry of Vietnam
***
Then we can still dream
Oh no one,
Who still has a dream?
I bent down to pick up the night debris spreading in the water
Pitch black night. And I wish
In my slumber, there will be a dream filled with flowers.
(Translated into English by HFT)
_________________
Read: The Soul Flew Away – Poetry from Vietnam
