To read the original poems in Vietnamese, please click here ‘Thơ Nhã Ca (#29)‘
Going Into Childhood translated by Đinh Từ Bích Thúy and Martha Collins from the original Vietnamese ‘Đi Trong Tuổi Nhỏ’
Immense sea winds and tears Tears dissolved on her body Her soaked body And memory rose like steam The sky was distant blue then Then she was very small The sea pushed her down In the garden of her childhood there were horses A spacious garden, large horses Each afternoon The horses played with the girl Afternoons that never ended In the garden of her childhood there was a woman A crazy woman with cymbals Going round and round Shouting with the small girl Shouts that never ended In the garden of her childhood there was a sun The sun and young swordsmen Children with stomachs larger than heads Men with heads larger than stomachs And shriveled women With smiles tightened like clams The sun nourished them all In the garden of her childhood there was a road A road that ran into the sea Between two rows of sea-pines That repeated her mother’s lullabies Sea-pines and fishing boats Fish and fish sauce sweet as breath Lingering even now In the garden of her childhood Baby snakes slid under the horses’ legs And a woman was holding chopsticks When the chopsticks were raised The horses thrashed then vanished The snakes made plaintive sounds The horse oh the red horse The red horse where is my horse The cymbals clanged in panic In the garden of her childhood were small crabs White pebbles and coarse sand And many very small footprints Small murmuring snails And many caverns Whose talk never ended In the garden of her childhood were all things All the things one could think of These things taught her, made her grow up The horses taught her aggression The woman taught her illusions The snake taught her awareness The crabs taught disappointment The sun taught perseverance And the sea taught her darkness She stood and then she went In aggression awareness disappointment In perseverance she went in darkness On the road that ran into the sea She asked about her friends and the gentle sea The sea replied with a winter storm Winter oh winter Winter made her friends flee and hide She stood and then she went Slowly she went toward death Scar translated by Đinh Từ Bích Thúy from the Vietnamese original ‘Vết Thẹo’ The little girl came into existence with a lonely scar During a time of no hunger no fullness no smell no taste I live freely in my body and Listen to the scar growing slowly, taking roots Attuned in time to the smell and taste of love In one step I left behind my girlhood I alone exist in my deep dark scar Empty body in which fragments travel My scar my wound hidden by reeds I’ve lived with my predicament through the years All those years I’ve looked at life–a stranger The war within me continues coldly |