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NGUYEN
THI THANH BINH
_______________________________
NIGHT
WITHOUT POWER
IN
THE US
(translated by NGUYEN NGOC BICH)
It was one of those nights, it seems
unlike any other night, a night of
thunderstorms that characterizes this
season in our city where there are plenty
But a thunderstorm-filled night in a
strange city is unbearable with its unending
rains, o of course there are always those
who forever wait day in and day out for a rain
a thunderstorm a torrential spring. To pour
down on a drought-ravaged life. What for
it's not sure nor is it necessary to know
why. And it never is clear why
thunderstorms can cause the lights to switch off
those scintillating lights out there. Out there
and I in here all of sudden are caught under
the stamping foot of the dark. Crushed
one night that must eventually go away
at least the worst part is not because
we find ourselves abruptly without power
(something that is rare indeed)
what is there remarkable about a night
without power as has happened countless times
where I used to live and love and...
where I still left a crescent of a moon
the difference being: at a far corner of a
strange land, there is this strange woman
in a strange night most strange of
all, wishing to find a little of a once familiar moon.
‰
NGUYEN THI THANH BINH
· THE WRITERS
POST (ISSN: 1527-5467),
the magazine of Literature & Literature-in-translation.
VOLUME
6 ISSUE 2 JULY
2004
Editorial
note:
All works published in this issue are simultaneously published in the printed
Wordbridge magazine double issue 3 &4 Winter
2003 & Spring 2004. (ISSN: 1540-1723).
Copyright © Nguyen Thi Thanh Binh & The
Writers Post 1999-2004. Nothing in this issue may be downloaded, distributed,
or reproduced without the permission of the author/ translator/ artist/ The Writers Post/ and Wordbridge
magazine. Creating links to place The Writers Post or any of its pages within
other framesets or in other documents is copyright violation, and is not
permitted.
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