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THE WRITERS POST (ISSN: 1527-5467) VOLUME 7 NUMBER 2 JUL 2005
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THANH TON _______________________________ RESPONSE Translated by N. Saomai The day you left I was really little, knew nothing, just smiling the goodbyes But still I remembered when the boat turned the waves, in that blue
river, rose to see you off. You dreamt of new horizons, I the studies But a faded friendship there would never be. Your poem as a lament for our times recalled the long past to my mind. A nostalgic walk I took down memory lane Oh yes, the blue river, bright moon, and the bamboo hedges that stood round our village, the shore where boats lay, the mountain for covering clouds awaited and red fireworks, pink wine,
holidays and Tet. All those old days were now memory Trau Dam bank, Ba Doi bridge mournfully remained. As time insisted to take
away with it the existence of us all. And
butterflies and birds. And Bich, and Ngan, and Ha, and To were all gone, leaving no
vestige of youth. They became a strange Thu Ha, a funny Ngoc Bich wandering through those city
streets. And young frail Dao, toothless Hai,
skinny Thi all were en-route to defense
our country. As you knew already When you old bamboos died, they were the shoots to rise: Forever mingling with the mist the lullaby. The wine I took not, but drunk already as far-distant old days came
alive in me. The song that lulled my childhood also lulled the first love I’ve known: The love for our country, the voice of
Life. I admired you for forgetting not the days of old. Your love was
inextricably bound to our homeland, that you put it away something you wanted to say. Sad you might feel, or you felt not when she was now married? (Translated
by N. Saomai from the Vietnamese text in Thanh
Ton’s poetry collection ‘Thap tinh’ published in 1969 in
Vietnam) The Writers Post &
literature-in-translation, founded
1999, based in the US. Editorial
note: Works
published in this issue are simultaneously published in the printed Wordbridge magazine (ISSN: 1540-1723). Copyright
© N. Saomai 2005. Nothing in
this magazine 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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