An afternoon at the end of the week

A poem in Vietnamese by Bạch Diệp
Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

Bạch Diệp (source: The poet’s social media page)

AN AFTERNOON AT THE END OF THE WEEK

Picking up the pieces of the afternoon

Tucking them away inside a draw

Includes you too, dear

A wistful thorn

/

April is as unsteady as a drunk as oblivious as those unaware

The streets, crown land scattered with geranium

/

Draped quietly across the lawn

In strokes of gorse and canvas

Roses and Jack London on a wooden shelf

/

I was reminded of the things we did, and shouldn’t have done.

—–

April 2022

—

CHIỀU CUỐI TUẦN

Nhặt những câu chuyện của chiều 

Cho vào ngăn kéo

Cả anh nữa

Chiếc gai đăm chiêu

/

Tháng Tư đi như người say nói như người ngây

Phố là điền trang nở đầy hoa phong lữ

/

Rũ những vạt âm thầm trên cỏ

Bằng nét cọ kim tước và toan

Đặt lên kệ gỗ hoa hồng ngài Jack London

/

Em nhớ chúng ta đã làm điều không muốn.

                BD 11.04.2022

Bạch Diệp, the poet and artist lives in Hue, Vietnam.

Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm, the blogger, poet, and translator, was born in 1971 in Phu Nhuan, Saigon, Vietnam. The pharmacist currently lives and works in Western Sydney, Australia.

By Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

There's magic in translating a body of work from one language to another.

25 comments

      1. Hahaha, I see what you mean 🤭🤭😄. I think it may have been the choice of emoji that gave the impression of a sarcastic undertone. But I am definitely not sarcastic about the fact that it is a great poem and I am definitely not sarcastic about the helpfulness of your translations 👍💯😄😄.

        I am not a sarcastic person; as a matter of fact, it’s within my nature to be very sincere and being positive and cheerful is just part of my personality lol

        Liked by 1 person

      3. 🤣🤣 I accept you as you are and will take your advice into consideration and I will continue to support you and compliment your work with positive and encouraging input just like I always have 👍😄☺️💕

        Liked by 1 person

      5. 🤩💕 awwww, you are very welcome ☺️🤗💙💙.

        I wish you and yours a marvelously Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 🎉⭐🎄🎇🥰😘.

        Liked by 1 person

      7. You are incredible💕💕✌️🙂. Thank you so much, and I hope that 2⃣0⃣2⃣3⃣ will be a phenomenal year for you👍👍😂

        And remember, I never think that you are sarcastic, only that there are moments when you are drunk haha 😆

        Liked by 1 person

  2. “Ha ha, sarcasm is an art yeah. 🙂”

    LOL you make it look like an art 😂🤩💕💕

    Sorry for responding to this so late 🤭☺️🌹. I hope you’re well my friend 👍😄

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  5. Happy New Year and above all good health to you and your whole family. Peace, justice, love and freedom for all oppressed peoples. Friendly kisses from Auvergne (France). ❤

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: