CÚNG | Thanh Dang

chút lãng mạn của tết mùa đông mưa tuyết rơi … minh hoạ ất tỵ.qsn. art by Đinh Trường Chinh

A poem in Vietnamese by Thanh Dang
Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

ancestral offerings and prayers
give thanks to the Gods of the Land
thank God for you
thank you for those who love

TRUE

is the wandering vernacular
the indefinite drawn together
a coincidental portrait
of fate say

a play of words recycled as they may
and your love for life is the light
I will follow, live for, I will fight

home day after day
upon your sleeves true
a budding season
colour of spring

CÚNG

Chiều nay cúng rước ông bà
Cảm ơn Thổ Địa, cảm ơn đất trời
Cảm ơn em ở bên đời
Cảm ơn người khắp nơi nơi hữu tình

RẤT THẬT

Chỉ là chữ nghĩa rong chơi
Không, là tinh mật mù khơi kết thành
Chỉ là chữ nghĩa làm tranh
Không, từ gió bụi phúc lành nhân duyên

Chỉ là chữ nghĩa đảo điên
Không, từ muôn kiếp hiện tiền giống nhau
Em còn một cõi tình say
Tôi còn vĩnh quyết dài ngày bước theo

Còn em về với mỗi ngày
Mùa xuân rất thật trong màu áo xanh

Thanh Dang, the poet from Vietnam currently resides in Houston, Texas, U. S. A.

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.

10 comments

  1. I often find myself baffled whether “xanh” indicates blue or green color in Vietnamese literature. I assume it’s green for the most part (correct me if I got it wrong).
    In the song “Tình xanh”, at the end, the lyrics goes “dù đời ngăn cách, tình vẫn còn xanh” meaning if life keeps us apart, our love is still as fresh, with the green color “xanh” symbolizes the freshness and youth as in the beginning.
    In this post, màu áo xanh is probably the green color of Vietnamese soldiers’ outfit. From your English version, “xanh” being translated as the color of spring gives me more certainty that it must be green, the original color of a leaf, the beginning of a life, just like the beginning season of the year.

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  2. Oh? Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts my dear.

    Trust your instinct, intuition. Since poetry is more of a dream than the daily grind. I don’t believe it is my place to correct you. You must find your own way.

    Spring isn’t always the first season of the year, hence time and anything substantial like leaves is even less substantial.

    Poetry is more of a feeling than any actual quantifiable meaning like green or blue or leaves or spring or things.

    “Xanh” could simply be a childhood memory, a new beginning, a way to turn over a page to start afresh, and in some of my translations I have used “fresh” in place of “green”.

    Hence one short poem can have an infinite number of interpretations. Mine is simply one, the one that had gave me joy, or a better way I like to put it is, that it was a lovely conversation I had with the author of the poem.

    My translation is simply a moment in time. And in time in our mind the memory changes and fade, I might translate it again and again.

    So you are right, whatever your conclusion might be.

    Năm mới tôi chúc em mọi sự an lành hạnh phúc như ý.

    T.

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