HOMESICK AND NOSTALGIC

FOREVER

Missing and longing for my motherland how I smart!

It feels like a swift current running in my heart.
Apparently like kites flying in the warm sunny sky,

But it's a rainy, windy night with storm to intensify!

The grief is immense, compassion for a firmament,
On that far-away native soil of love permanent.

I remember the still river, the old watering place,

The past paddy-fields in the moonlit wide space.

Dazed with melancholy, with memories lifelong,

Old friends, a time of joyful amusing singsong,

The green years' school roofs, the fresh stream,

The small path that forks to multiple sites to seem.

For them, for those, eternal yearning, endless plea,
Mine is like a big boat sail missing the vast sea.
The days have flown away with winds and dew

I feel as if a big mountain is blocking my view.

Always missing and longing for, without cease,
All my heart is forever righteous never to decrease.

The golden crane has not got back once flew away,

The white clouds are still over there, day after day!

             Translation by THANH-THANH