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THE
WRITERS POST (ISSN: 1527-5467) Volume 4- Issue 2 July 2002
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N. SAOMAI ___________________________ Words (translated by the author) As the sharp sword of dull knowledge chops the words, I chop myself in two: the black, and white. With its legs in chains, one is in the Deep down below;
the other, up in the High above, with its hands lifting the sun that sets. Run I run through the fields of memory, Stepping on
every fragment of words¾the
A, the B. As
I amble about my feeling in blue and my thinking in
red, I find myself in and out of that empty
canvas. In the ‘period’ that ended my life long ago as it
might there appears the old soul ¾a daisy blooming during
the day, when seems to be the flaming sword every ‘comma’ that split my heart into them fingers. Mountain stone-dumb much long I have been Yet I try this morning to babble the language of
insects. Fine grass and green silk never had I seen Why are now those green silks the grass in
velvet? To be the fool in the street I had much to try But on the temple perron
the Han Lu [1] are still full of fight Ambling about my feeling in blue and my thinking
in red I find myself
white as the night on that empty canvas. Translated
by the author (Vietnamese version was
originally published in Songvan magazine, Premier Issue, March 1996) Editorial
note: (1)One
spicies of dog. There is a legend about Han family' s dogs which are the ones
(of China’s fastest dogs) could catch the Tung Son mountain rabbits¾ fast and clever. The
dogs, however, in confusion tried to catch the reflection of the moon on the
temple perron which is mistaken for the rabbit, and they, of course, caught
neither moon nor rabbit. · THE WRITERS POST (ISSN: 1527-5467), Volume 5- Issue 1- January 2003 Copyright © 1999-2003
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