Rhythms Compose the Way
One’s memory stirs
Where shades have deeply buried shades
Rottenness thirsts for the calamity of fire
Stars sleepwalk
Falling into thin dew
Bitter leaves crawl over scalding coals
In their breath pine leaves shroud pine cones
Someone is putting away his traveling case
Shadows that hide in antique objects
Still tremble in fear when their names are called
Tears blur the epochs
In an irrational movement
The ground lies on its belly to support the levee
A stream of white smoke rises up
A fall pours down from layers of dying leaves
Deep tombs open in one’s chest
Revealing the arterial paths
Corrupted by many inverted rooftops
With stains on the lime-washed web-ridden walls
Inside which the dull tapping sounds
Urge a run towards the door.
BITTER POTION
(For Ngọc Trâm)
As fever is burning you on its pyre
I become ash too
The bitter potion cannot wait any more
Holding your hand
I pour
My grief into the empty bowl…
O’ daughter! As the mist falls
My hardship arches across the cold night
For frail flowers
To give off scent needs bitter roots.
Sweat becomes callused hands
Spring pours into the medicine bowl
My old age weeps with mute tears
While truth bursts out for no reason.
I wonder what you eat in your dreamsI put the bowl on the window
When you grow up to my age now
At the bottom of the bowl
There may still be a storm.
تم التقييم بالنجوم بنجاح.