A poem in Vietnamese by Phạm Công Thiện
Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
Photography: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

Rain

How could a storm upon the branches hesitate

How could a sky divide such soulmates

How could a cuckoo be so sad that it couldn’t crow

How could anything forget the rain may fly or flow

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May 2022

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Mưa

Có mưa dính muộn trên cành cây

Có đâu trời bắt phải chia tay

Có chim tu hú buồn không gáy

Có gì quên hết mưa còn bay

[Nguồn: Phạm Công Thiện, Trên tất cả đỉnh cao là lặng im, NXB Văn hoá Sài Gòn, 2009]

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Phạm Công Thiện, the poet, Buddhist philosopher, and scholar, under the name of Nguyên Tánh was born on June 1st, 1941 in Mỹ Tho, Vietnam. He left Vietnam in 1970, lived in Israel, Germany, then for a while in France. In 1983, he moved to the United States, settled in Los Angeles, and became a professor of Buddhism at the College of Buddhist Studies. He passed away on August 3rd, 2011 in Houston, Texas, U.S.A.

[Source: thivien.net]

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.