Waiting for you
“I’m only a sketch of myself” – Le Thi Kim
Time, in time of waiting
A season passes every minute
The wind calls until its voice’s hoarse
The sun sulks on sparse foliage
My soul is burnt by a fire
Your voice fills my memory
Waiting for you makes me swoon
The cup of coffee looks doleful
A moment becomes an eternity
Oh the time of waiting
How endless it is
How slow you are on your way
When you are far away
I’m filled with questions
Some vague sorrow
suddenly turns into a call
Where are you wandering, Venus?
Are heavenly bodies stirred in their orbits?
Allow me a moment of silence
to recall my shelter
You are as immaculate as a silk dress
and as profound as love
I wait for my soul
You’re too naive to understand
My Song of Moon
The moon casts its golden light
on the meditative life
Oh how vast the river is
in its long and lonely night
Sometimes in my real life
I talk and smile and dream
to hide in illusion
my helpless heart
To hide in illusion
a crescent moon
to hide in illusion
my painful love
It gets cold today
to welcome the spring back
Can spring remove
all sorrows in me
To help my desolate heart
stop crying helplessly
and build for me a fire
of hope and devotion?
Huế chanty
Where did the night on the Hương River bring these folk songs to?
How plaintive and rhythmic the Huế chanty is
It keeps covering me with gentle vibrations
Like my lost love coming back unexpectedly
I’m a lonely stork by the river
The chanty builds a warm fire in me
and brings me back to my old sunny village
full of warm love
All chanties tell wayfarers to remember the boat dock
The sunlight may die away but a faithful friend keeps waiting
Like waves on the Hương River, they never get excited
Hidden waves show how deep the river is
We only got to know each other after coming here
A profound friendship hidden in Huế chanties
in every gentle look
and in parting night when no one wanted to leave
Please give me...
Please give me
one more minute
to be with all of you
In my home over one thousand kilometers away from here
may Huế chanties keep for me anything...
The second hand of my watch keeps running indifferently
paying no attention to my crying soul
Saigon is far, Saigon is very far, how can the wind bring there
Huế chanties full of love and affection of the Hương River?
L.T.K
(Phạm Viêm Phương dịch)