A SUMMER DAY
IN SAN FRANCISCO
To my dear father on his visit
to his descendents in the United States
I arrived in San Francisco at noon
On
a day dark similar to nightfall.
The slopes hazed far above with fog;
People
crowded like in a festive mall.
The
distant sea surface was dim;
the
petrels inclined their wings still;
the
sails glided past one after another;
the
breeze brought a breath of chill.
From
this side of the straits,
I
looked at the other along each span
and
felt as if the suspended bridge
still
retained the spirit of a gone man.
Oh,
Strauss*, the old engineer!
Your
heart and mind being so sublime
with
marvelous lines in your design
have
and will still live through time.
I
got to San Francisco on the winding
and
sloping streets with pleasure;
Like
the transversely crawling crabs,
the
line of vehicles rounded at leasure.
Going
downwards then back upwards
around
in four and each way trend,
the
horizontal and vertical roads
drifted
up and down as if waves bend.
The
rows of houses one upon another
heaping
up round the mountain side:
whose
hands were so skillful to create?
what
masterpiece did nature to us confide?
I
entered San Francisco City
feeling
tears in my eyes suddenly start;
I
gazed far over the Pacific Ocean
and suffered pain in my deep heart...
Vietnamese poem by SONG NHỊ
English translation
by thanh-thanh
*Joseph B. Strauss, the engineer who designed and built
the