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[sefirah:4264] New Year Bath; The Endless Dream (poem) - Mai Văn Phấn. Translated from Vietnamese by Nguyễn Tiến Văn. Edited by Susan Blanshard
Translated from Vietnamese by Nguyễn Tiến Văn
Edited by Susan Blanshard
New Year Bath
without attaining purity after continuous purifications
I returned to take a bath with the lamp
I moved my shoulders towards the light
then both hands
my feet, my chin, my knees
even both eyes and my dry coughing
pouring light into all hidden recesses
each of them working as a germinator of sprouts
as a forge to temper hot iron with water
as an incubator for eggs
as a grafted trunk sticking out lateral branches
taking a bath to welcome the new Spring
immersing oneself in light
while silently evoking grandparents and parents
the body rises towards the lamp
light pours profusely while I called your name
it was hovering in pregnancy
I tried to call somebody in the faraway region
the still lamp became all the more brighter
and brighter.
In memory of Diễm Châu, a poet
The rain made you cold no more
falling on the dream close to morning
turbid troubled waves
stroked on the mangrove swamps at your birth.
The sky was without a covering roof
the star shone brightly on thick spectacles
casually put on the keyboard
on the morning of December 28, with rainfall.
The rain was bitingly cold to the bones!
The earth was bitingly cold to the bones!
Turning the pages in your open book
a child's cry was heard in the foliage
in a bird's wings just spreading*
in a low-flying cloud
The winds rushed in
wrapping white scarves around mangrove trees
in the zenith the coffin was rolling up and down.
M.V.P
____________
(*) After a poetic image from Diễm Châu
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