NEW
“HỒ TRƯỜNG”
Just
then... some thirty-three a year
I look back on those green times dear
Since
“nineteen seventy five”
Time has passed so fast into the past to dive
When
it seemed in a flowery summer night dream to hive.
Contemplating myself in the mirror, how strange:
Gray hair, sunken cheeks, wrinkled skin – what
change!
Suddenly in my heart many anxieties rise up
My innards contract in a bitter cup
When
my country’s image glimmers in sight
Tears ready to overflow in such sad plight.
How intimate it was the “thee-and-thou”
How lovable our karma once to be soldiers under a
vow,
But now everything has turned to eternally flee
I alone in this place am still remembering all ye
Mostly on this year’s commemoration
The landmark of time – thirty three years of
botheration
Still reminisce about each bird that swiftly took
wing
Leaving behind country and even families, just
flying.
I
feel pity for myself this cuss
I take compassion on ourselves, all of us
But do not grudge being born in this century as
wrong.
I now have lived peacefully in the States so long
Seeing the sun set I regret my youth at twilight.
Oh friends! thou and thee
Tonight...
I again remember ye
The old buddies who have once faced dangers with
me.
I’ve felt full of rancor in exile full of tears
But this life gradually dries up every time April
nears
Tonight suddenly is abundant the wine
Outside it is pitch-black along the skyline
Though late, drinking alone, this vigil I am to
keep
Reciting the Ho Truong poem in a singsong voice
deep
Holding the bottle to the four directions
stretching out
I
still do not know where to pour for a drinking bout
Where is my each close chum
More than thirty years dumb!
Only in a foreign country can I find out the truth,
my stand
“Each human being has only one fatherland”
As for us, how come?
Buried under the cold ground was the fate of some,
Drowned in the deep sea, that of others;
A few scattered at the ends of the earth, in
smothers.
Whatever their lives, their wish nobody can ever foil,
They never forget and abandon their ancestors’
native soil.
Sometimes someone said that we are old-aged already
So I tried to address ye as “you” solemn and
steady
But my voice I still thought it some other’s lisp
anyhow
And
guffawed ... pitying the “thee-and-thou”
Ho Truong wine, if ye still think of me and us
henceforth
Please raise your cups even in East, West, South,
North
Though we are like an oil-lamp burning out its last
fire
May it be a minute of brilliance before the time we
expire.
Translation by Thanh-Thanh