Bui Kim Anh
Poetess Bui Kim Anh was born in 1948, in Thai Binh province, Vietnam. She graduated from Literature Department of Pedagogical University. She used to be a teacher of Literature. She is member of Vietnam Writers’ Association, and Hanoi Writers’ Association. She has published 13 books of poetry and prose and won 3 literary awards of The Vietnam Union of Literature and Arts, Literature & Arts Newspaper, Education and Times Newspaper.
THIS AFTERNOON’S ROSE
This afternoon it blooms crimson
Maybe tomorrow
It sheds its petals
If I were young
Would catch each falling petal
Will you lend a smile?
Kiss a lip that color
To cheat myself
Or to comfort
Woman’s age
Lend me your love
To keep writing an enrapt poem
Then search forever
I hide myself gracelessly
Poem hides marks
Untouched this afternoon’s rose
Petals falling
***
COLD AT THE END OF WINTER
Roses frosted
Proud in a room
Cheerless knowing it won’t last the night
Bewildered verses
To wake up wishing for light
Night but night I remember
Mist or spring rain
Cold at the end of winter freezing cold
Unnamed emotion
Hair blowing with the wind
You no longer bring poem to me
I no longer fantasize about myself
I sit among the arranged space
Drop a seed of poem each day
Seeds of life that do not divide up emotions
When the world is turned upside down
Mist or spring rain
I know that I cannot dream
***
YOU ARE JUST SAD
I’m old, nothing wrong aren’t you
Your classic appearance
Hanoi’s classic street
You are just sad
The willow tree is earnestly by the lake
Afternoon light mixed with the blue lake surface
You accompany me when I am lonely
A woman writing poem she needs the silence
Whenever everybody sleeps, then poem wakes up
You look at the night
I look at you
Loneliness is complicity with the dark
If still love, let us write poem
The night shelters for the opened love
To prevent the wind beating through the curious window
Stop fear making me trembled
The poem cannot be named
I forgot
Clumsy in the old street
Don’t you hesitate to be with me for years?
Don’t you drink a glass of wine with me?
A love poem without lips
***
BY CHANCE YOU CAME
Harmless sparrows fly in
To chirp a short melody
I grab the phone taking a quick photo
Capturing the moment of flying birds
You came by chance
As the deciduous shadow
As the misty illusion
And then disappeared without entanglement
____________________
(Translated into English by Khanh Phuong)
