MISS A FRIEND IN CAO BANG

(to an old friend of mine, to the poet Be Thanh Long)


I imagine that you are as mischievous as a little elephant
You may reach the age of sixty, mayn't you?
But in my eyes, you're still young as ever
with your poems always wink cheerfully.


A paddle is stirring the reeds on the muddy water (*)
A blue daisy gasps in its own fragrance
She doesn't wait
so you aren't stupid to miss her any more
Her white shirt in the past was cold and thin.


The bight moon on the head doesn't seem ghostly
You don't know when Bo Tung Linh is inside you (*)
It doesn't matter for having been lonely for few tens of years
Three old men is living in a cave of historic stories
Opponents of equal strength have more white beards
The sounds of wild-geese are all over the sky and the earth (*)
Layer by layer the sounds of wild-geese go far away
Layer and layer the sounds of wild-geese fly transparently
Under the deep height, there I sit by myself.

4- 2002.
 NGUYEN ANH NONG

(*) Some names and some ideas of poet Be Thanh Long' poems.


Năm dịch: 2008