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NGUYEN
THI THANH BINH
_______________________________
NIGHT
WITHOUT POWER
IN
THE US
(translated
by NGUYEN NGOC BICH)
It
was one of those nights, it seems
unlike
any other night, a night of
thunderstorms
that characterizes this
season
in our city where there are plenty
But
a thunderstorm-filled night in a
strange
city is unbearable with its unending
rains,
o of course there are always those
who
forever wait day in and day out for a rain
a
thunderstorm a torrential spring. To pour
down
on a drought-ravaged life. What for
it's
not sure nor is it necessary to know
why.
And it never is clear why
thunderstorms
can cause the lights to switch off
those
scintillating lights out there. Out there
and
I in here all of sudden are caught under
the
stamping foot of the dark. Crushed
one
night that must eventually go away
at
least the worst part is not because
we
find ourselves abruptly without power
(something
that is rare indeed)
what
is there remarkable about a night
without
power as has happened countless times
where
I used to live and love and...
where
I still left a crescent of a moon
the
difference being: at a far corner of a
strange
land, there is this strange woman
in a
strange night most strange of
all,
wishing to find a little of a once familiar moon.
‰
NGUYEN THI THANH BINH
· 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 © Nguyen Thi Thanh Binh & 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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