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THE WRITERS POST (ISSN: 1527-5467) VOLUME 4 NUMBER 2 JUL 2002
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N. SAOMAI /
NGUYEN SAO MAI ___________________________ Words (translated by the author)
As the sharp sword of dull knowledge
chops the words,
I chop myself in two: the black, and white.
With its legs in chains, one is in the Deep
down below;
the other, up in the High above,
with its hands lifting the sun that sets.
Run I run through the fields of memory,
Stepping on every
fragment of words¾the A, the B. As I
amble about my feeling in blue and my thinking in
red,
I find myself in and out of that empty canvas.
In the ‘period’ that ended my life long ago as it might
there appears the old soul ¾a
daisy blooming
during the day,
when seems to be the flaming sword every ‘comma’
that split my heart into them fingers.
Mountain stone-dumb much long I
have been
Yet I try this morning to
babble the language of insects.
Fine grass and green silk never had I seen
Why are now those green silks the grass in velvet?
To be the fool in the street I had much to try But on the temple perron the Han Lu
[1] are still full
of fight
Ambling about my feeling in blue and my thinking in red
I find myself white as
the night on that empty canvas. Translated by the author (Vietnamese version was originally published
in Songvan magazine, Premier Issue, March
1996) Editorial
note: (1)
One
spicies of dog. There is a legend about Han family' s dogs which are the ones
(of China’s fastest dogs) could catch the Tung Son mountain rabbits¾ fast and clever. The dogs,
however, in confusion tried to catch the reflection of the moon on the temple
perron which is mistaken for the rabbit, and they, of course, caught neither
moon nor rabbit. · THE
WRITERS POST
(ISSN: 1527-5467), Volume
4, Number 2 July 2002
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