Err is the season | Bùi Kim-Anh

A poem in Vietnamese by Bùi Kim-Anh
Translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

Written for no one
Yet still baffled so
Written for sundowns
Sunset absent towns

Err is the season
Err is the wilted rose
Froze in a draw cold
Sold to those that love

A rendezvous nil
That aeon ago
And now still thus so
An ode without love

Written for sundown
Dropped two words abiding
Gone are sentiments
As time hangs passes by

HÌNH NHƯ MÙA ĐÃ LỠ


có viết cho ai đâu
mà bâng khuâng tệ thế
viết cho những buổi chiều
không hoàng hôn trên phố

hình như mùa đã lỡ
hình như hoa hồng ủ
lạnh đông trong ngăn tủ
bán cho người yêu nhau

đã bao giờ hẹn đâu
từ ngày xưa xa ấy
và bây giờ cũng vậy
câu thơ không tình yêu

viết cho những buổi chiều
quên hai chữ chờ đợi
rơi đâu rồi cảm xúc
lững lờ thời gian trôi


Bùi Kim Anh, the poet born in 1948 in Thái Bình, graduated from Hanoi Teacher College, a teacher at a few high schools in Hanoi(Cổ Loa, Bạch Mai, Trần Phú). She is a member of the Vietnam Writers Association. Bùi Kim Anh together with her journalist husband Trần Mai Hạnh currently lives in Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, Hanoi with their eldest daughter and grandchildren, including Thiện Nhân, from Mount Thành, Quảng Nam, abandoned by his mother and adopted by Trần Mai Anh, the poet’s daughter.

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's avatar

By Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

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

Leave a comment