A poem in Vietnamese by Lê Vĩnh Tài
Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
Photography: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
rain
=
clouds
signals your disappearance
into clouds of sadness
=
furthest from heaven
you’re in a storm
in the coming rain
=
when it rains you sense that
the sky was home with grey ceilings
=
nothing but lightning
and thunder
and something smaller
and you could feel
every drop
=
every drop of loneliness
=
the rain will always place me
beneath you
_____
mưa
=
mặc dù những đám mây
thông báo rằng bạn đã biến mất
vào đám mây buồn
=
những tầm xa nhất của thiên đàng
bạn sẽ cảm thấy cơn bão
mà mưa mang tới
=
bạn chỉ biết khi trời mưa
bầu trời như căn nhà có trần màu xám
=
chỉ có sấm sét
và một cái gì đó nhỏ hơn
bạn cảm thấy từng giọt
=
từng giọt
và bạn một mình
=
mưa sẽ luôn đặt tôi
bên dưới bạn
_____
NOVEMBER 2019
Lê Vĩnh Tài, the poet and translator born in 1966 in Buon Ma Thuot, Daklak, Vietnam. The retired doctor is still a resident of the Western Highlands and a businessman in Buon Ma Thuot.
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.
Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm 
What does, “the rain will always place me/beneath you” mean? What is it referring to. I kind of interpreted this piece as the person died, so now they become a cloudy sky
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Is meaning that important?
—
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
– the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says
we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
E. E. Cummings
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Jesus Christ 😯😯😯 this is incredible and exactly what I needed to read. Noted; will never ask for meaning of the poem again 🙏🏾
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heheh, I’m picking on you.. it’s okay, I just envy your youth.. 🙂 Let me tell you a secret: the reason I started to translate anything half a decade ago was because the words drew me in, but I had no idea what it meant.. The “experts” keeps saying how amazing I was, my poor grasp of the Vietnamese language and yet I could translate poetry of all things.. I thought it was obvious, I translated into a language I am familiar with with the hope of understanding some of it. Some poems evolved for me over the years as my grasp for their vernacular grew stronger, but the origina; feeling remains true to the very first moment I read it. Like love at first sight. I read so much poetry that I find most poetry like most human condition strenuous and boring, most people never try.. they walk through life like zombies like their poetry. They spend so much time worrying how it all looks, but they fail to be sincere. I prefer a badly written with sincerity than a well written one that taste like cardboard… heheh– thanks for putting up with my verbal diarrhoea
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Hahahah “verbal diarrhea” 😂😂😂 whatever you think of what you wrote, I love it! On that note, I hope my poetry doesn’t taste like cardboard to you! 😯 If any of it does, I am so so so so so soooooo open to feedback pleaseeeee!! 🙏🏾🙏🏾
A while ago, my relationship with my best friend crumbled. I was LIVID at him because he’s the one who was crumbling the relationship while I was screaming, suffering and trying to save the pieces. At the very end of our relationship, he wrote me a poem. I spent nearly 3 years reading the poem—lost as could be of its meaning—until one day I realized: the poem is an apology letter where he explains (super poetically 🙄) how I changed his life for the best, that the end is all his fault, but why he couldn’t be in the relationship anymore. So, in a way, I get what you mean by some poems evolved for you over the years. Anyways, wow, that kid was always a much much much better poet than I was (and maybe could ever be)—and he never even tried! It’s a shame that such good talent is going to waste.
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It’s life, it’s complicated, and letting go is not easy. Embracing one’s nature/gift is something else for another day perhaps? But, one thing I do know is that when you’re not ready, you’re not ready, no one else can tell you otherwise. Here’s cheer to Sir Charles the Poet!
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I do hope he comes around to it. But he is a talented kid overall so I’m not worried about him at all. I wish him the best. Cheers to you too, Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm! 🙏🏾
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❤
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Did you see my reply?
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Oh you probably have to approve it haha
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