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HOANG
XUAN SON
_______________________________
SUDDENLY ONE DAY
(translated by NGUYEN NGOC BICH)
I have lived here all of three years
but haven’t got a high nose or blue eyes
All of a sudden, one day I became a citizen of X
country
It’s all there, on paper, fully spelled out
That I enjoy every right, of every sort
O it’s stinging enough enduring three years !
At any rate I should still say thanks to this land
of indifference
Which indifferently turned me, an unskilled one,
into a skilled one
I can now handle hammer and pliers without too
much shame
Are we happy on this day of skin shedding ?
We shed our immigrants’coat,
always on the receiving end .
How come tears keep welling in our eyes ?
Are they tears of happiness or tears for our uprootedness ?
HOANG XUAN SON
· THE
WRITERS POST
(ISSN: 1527-5467),
the magazine of Literature & Literature-in-translation.
VOLUME
6 ISSUE 2 JULY
2004
Editorial
note:
All works published in this issue are simultaneously published in the printed
Wordbridge magazine double issue 3 &4 Winter
2003 & Spring 2004. (ISSN: 1540-1723).
Copyright © Hoang Xuan Son & The Writers Post 1999-2004. Nothing in
this issue may be downloaded, distributed, or reproduced without the
permission of the author/ translator/ artist/
The Writers Post/ and Wordbridge magazine. Creating
links to place The Writers Post or any of its pages within other framesets or
in other documents is copyright violation, and is not permitted.
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