A poem in Vietnamese by Trần Quốc Toàn
Translation: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

Characters half asleep in the land of white clouds

Human characters,

Birds searching for a warm nest after the rain.

–

A foetus with the embodiment of dawn

Father was on the wrong side of the horizon

Discerning the shatter of glassy clouds.

–

My character was a ripe moon in yellow cabbage blooms

Feet upon the keys of the wind

Jostling aching heartbeats

On all levels were the characters of an adventurous spirit.

–

The raining characters dancing on a palm-leaf conical hat

In the days’ mother was burdened with the wild nights

When it was barely light

Her face was riddled with listlessness.

–

The characters lifting these painful earthly loads

Sprouting 

secreting

In the melodious voice of herbs.

–

As the sky nourishes every drop of sunlight

Filtering

Each character of you(my love),

The cries of babes in a season of milk in decline

Out on the veranda, the winter afternoon sheds its leaves . . .

—

June 2022

_

Kí Tự

Chiều ngái ngủ một trời hoang mây trắng

Những kí tự người,

Chim đi tìm tổ ấm sau đêm mưa.

–

Trong bào thai nhân quả buổi bình minh

Cha đi lệch góc trời

Nghe mây thủy tinh nứt vỡ.

–

Kí tự tôi trăng mùa cải vàng bông

Thả bước chân lên phím gió

Từng nhịp tim đau vồn vã

Trên những tầng kí tự phiêu linh.

–

Kí tự mưa tung tẩy trên nón lá

Thủa mẹ gánh gồng đêm bưng hoang

Trời chưa tảng sáng

Khuôn mặt chằng chịt vết lăng trầm.

–

Kí tự nhẹ nâng những cơn đau cõi đất

Nhú mầm

tiết mật

Trong tiếng hát loài thảo mộc.

–

Trời hàm dưỡng từng giọt nắng

Chắt lọc

Kí tự em,

Tiếng khóc trẻ thơ mùa thiếu sữa

Bên hiên nhà lá rụng chiều đông . . .

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Trần Quốc Toàn, the Vietnamese poet born 1992, at Tuy Phước, Bình Định, Vietnam. Prize: Tiền Vệ 2019 Liberal Literature Award for Kinh Đêm, a book of poetry; Văn Việt 2022 Literature Award for the novel Trong Rừng Cây Du Thủ.

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.