Nguyễn Thị Bích Nga

THE QUIET GOLDEN  MOON

(to Nguyen Ngoc Dau)

I haven't been hungry for a long time
Therefore I'm getting fatter and fatter
My everyday is as cheerful as a party
Everywhere I come, there's brandy and tea…

*

I remember the day we were at the border
All of us were pale, yellow and skinny
We seemed very pitiful living alone in the forest's corner
We looked at the moon, desired for the sound of whispering…


Now I live in a very crowded city
Oh god, people are as many as the ants
I try to look for and meet some old friends
Then my innermost feelings is lightened


Lying with my hand on my forehead, I feel sorry for my friend
And I feel there's something wrong in this life
We used to be peaceful in those difficult days
But now we are unhappy in these easy days


I know each of us has his own fate
But why I'm still puzzled?
Embracing my friend, I embrace his snore too
Outside, by the verandah, there's a quiet golden moon.


Hanoi, 02/04/2004

A MAN WHO WHITTLES DOWN A BIT OF WOOD INTO A PLOUGH

         NGUYEN ANH NONG


My friend –
who is known for a hard working worker,
whittles down a bit of wood into a plough
He saves up every single letter of a word –
and sprinkles them all over the ground.
He doesn't care to remember if it's the dawn or the sunset
in the world!  

*
He keeps on whittling
A sad piece -
A happy one -
A forgotten one -
A remembered one -
A piece of clouds -
A piece of winds -
It seems to cut into the guts, cut into the soul.

*
He spreads his arms to break the obstacles,
angrily swallows his anger
he tries to make the rolling, bumpy life be bright, shining and smooth
he tries to plate the deep black world with nickel
he burns the time with his detailed work: an ant pulls some food, a sandcrab collects some sand, a peacock dances in the wild place?

*
This afternoon, after so much hurt and so much restless
A toothpick tilts its head, looks at me and smiles
It's just been freed by my friend.

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.

MONTHS AND YEARS IN THE FOREST

For many months and years in the forest,
with my comrades, I had been a sharp sword,
with my comrades, I had been a shield at the border landmark.

For many months and years in the forest,
I had eaten in the sun, slept in the fog,
I had expected the mails for few times every day,
I had made friends with the moon, with winds and clouds every night.

For many months and years in the forest,
a few of my comrades had fallen down,
but their holy spirits still stay there with the leaves in the forest.

For many months and years in the forest,
fire-ants had bitten and made my soul hurt,
when I heard the storm and the flood were coming to my hometown…

For many months and years in the forest,
my beloved people in the past were so indifferent that they turned into strangers.
The day I went down town –
I felt dazed, bewildered.

For many months and years in the forest,
how good memories flickered in my mind.
Oh, the fire among the night forest
has been smouldering tormentedly inside me.

A BOAT


He was born in Thanh province
His maternal hometown is in Thai Binh
His wife lives in Ha Noi
He, the husband, serves in the Army.


Like a floating boat
Today he's here, tomorrow he'll be there
If he can find a good place or a calm seashore
He will come, drop the anchor, and stay


All of people in three places love him
All of people in four places don't want him to go
At this boat station, who say farewell to him?
On that seashore, who say welcome to him?


The sea has been in a hubbub for its whole life
And he, a boat, keeps rolling on the waves for his whole life too…

GO AROUND ON BANG RIVERBANK

(to Y Phuong and my old friends in Cao Bang)


O dear Bang river! There's something very hurt in it!
The river is writhering like a woman is in a labor
How can I wrap my life with some water?
In my palms, the starlight is falling down drops by drops.


Why I feel tickled at the heels of my feet?
Pebbles and stones stir and wake up
The white hair of the reeds is quivering
Is there anything make them restless?


Is there anything make clouds and winds dazed?
A beautiful sunlight? Rains and storms? A good omen? A bad omen?
And the dragonflies with their worried foreheads…


I can't wait for the blue sky to understand
The god is still as dazed as the trees and the grass
Everything is real but it seems virtual
Then noisily in Bang river, stones give birth to flowers


Oh god and heaven, why art thy very far from me?
Come on, what do I blame the god for?
I should blame myself for not having experience
Suddenly I realize that, and I feel myself young again
And the horse on which I ride begins running very fast.


Cao Bang, 1991.
Thai Binh, 1992.

O my father!
(to my father's soul)


Now you were walking on the road to the Eternity
Your karma, your anxiety belonged to the past
You rode the clouds
You rode the winds
to the Elysium
like the day in the past you used to do that
The wound inside your body just turned out nothing
When you got hurt, you kept the pain for yourself
(people liked to share when they got hurt)
Your pain was handed to your children
No money could make you feel relieved
No medicine could help you become better

Eight months after the day your wound was checked
One month after the day we took you up to Ma Gia graveyard
They gave a war-wounded 's book to mother
She read
the blurred words in front of her eyes:
Mr Nguyen Van Hung
Ward Q.Y…
If you could return to life
Just for once
To see…
Your money of blood  
Then you could go away lightly
But…
Oh, come on!
I knew you never blamed anybody
(what did you blame them for?)


The road which you had walked was not easy
(all of the roads in this life were not easy)
But there were bombs and bullets on the road which you had walked
And, fire and smoke was all of the sky and the ground
We were – the seeds
tried to live
tried to be green.

The girl you had loved
Now she is my mother
our mother
Hung, Tuan, Ha, Ban, Linh, Van Bang, Bich, truong, Nga, Khanh… 's grandmother
She cried
until there were no more tears.

72 years ago when I hadn't become a dust yet
Our family 's small sun just rose up from the ground
You were born.
And from that day on, o my father!
Our village
bursted out the sound
"O" in the morning, "A" in the afternoon
You had a life of joy, sadness, happiness, and misery
with your children, your grandchildren like the buds and the flowers.

In your funeral
no one remembered your name – a war-wounded of the anti - American war
The Head of our village kept on repeating:
"He was – a farmer
a brave man
a comrade
a human-being…"


One of my classmate sailed the boat
The paddles made sound in the imaginary river
stirred the souls
stirred the deserted regions
Some coins were thrown with our true love to you
Quietly we took you on the trip  
The sound of crying was very sad
Above us
the grey clouds floated slowly and hesitatedly.


Which fellows of yours came to say farewell to you?
Which ones had stayed in the old battle field?
Which ones now had an easy life?
Which ones felt leisured?
Which ones were pure anh upright?
Which ones lied to every body?


You followed your ancestors to the warm and cold region
We called your name in all of this world
Then, father, did you still remember
the sound of your music equipment
in the nights were full of moonlight.


2006

KEEPING THE ELEPHANTS
        NGUYEN ANH NONG
 
I was – an elephants keeper
God, the giant elephants were very stubborn
I controlled them with my thinking
which was thinner than a thread of hair.

Hills and mountains were rolling – the elephants became goblins
Sometimes languages seemed incompetent
before my tameness.
The elephants  came to the beauty slowly
who had been immortal for thousands years?
who still made the men sob in ten thousands years?

I was a man
with white hair
white teeth
white hands…
who drove the pretty elephants home under the yellow moonlight.
And now
they were walking swaggeringly. /.

THE CHAOS AND THE ORDER OR THE LOGIC IS BLURRED

The twin tower collapsed
President Husen was hung
Bin Laden - Bush - Tony Blair...
Blood and flame
US dollars disappeared in our pockets
The devil of war was pulling the workers' stomaches
Conscience was lying under a wooden-chopping-block
Public opinions were writhing in a hot pan
Chaos, disorder with white clouds, yellow clouds
Goddess of Liberty
turned around
looking at
four dimensions
eight directions
She
bent down
blowing her nose
into
the feast
of the white-collared crows
They were cheerful, talking about
a hearty party
from their congeners' meat.

Hung Dung, 17/11/2007

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE POET TRAN DAN

He's the man who doesn't cry for his own suffering
But "cries for the horizon where there are no flying men" (*)
And "cries for flying men who don't have the horizon" (*)
 
He's the man who looks for the Clean Season
Isn't the earth clean?
Isn't the sky clean?
But how can the Pure Season be born?
 
He's the man who makes his poems a cane
Walking along with his whole changing life
And now a cane is the witness
Knocks into the time
Knocks into the feebleness, the damp, the mould
Then it smiles mercifully.