A poem in Vietnamese by Lê Vĩnh Tài
Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
Do you remember how I almost cried
waiting so long
my mother thought I would never wait for anything
women are the first to get hurt
first betrayed
your sleep was rather soundly
the sleep of a pregnant bird
Its skies suffocating
amongst the clouds
scattered with slogans
we open the door and welcome
the ghosts
meddle with legends
amalgamating all the historical images
—
November 2023
____
bạn nhớ mình suýt khóc
vì chờ đợi kéo dài
mẹ tưởng bạn không chờ đợi bất cứ điều gì
phụ nữ vẫn thường là những người luôn luôn bị thương
luôn luôn bị phản bội
giấc ngủ của bạn khá sâu
đó là giấc ngủ của một con chim biết bầu
trời của nó không còn một hơi thở
giữa các đám mây
treo đầy khẩu hiệu
chúng ta đang mở cửa cho phép
những bóng ma
can thiệp vào truyền thuyết
bao gồm tất cả các bức ảnh của lịch sử
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 
👻
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so nice
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( ◜‿◝ )♡
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nice
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Wow.
What a powerful poetic line that is, “We open the door and welcome the ghosts.”
I haven’t come across such a powerful sentence that jumps off the page at you in a long time.
I hope the poet doesn’t mind but I think I’m going to have my novel’s character British MP Renfield R. Renfield use that line “We open the door and we welcome the ghosts” in a speech sometime.
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Tài, would love it if you use the line. He is off in the mountains somewhere with his family, writing more poetry I guess. 🙂
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Good for him. 🙂
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