Waking Up in the Rain
1.
I open the door on a dark day
The mist rushes in with its moisture
I stir up the furnace
To dry my coat and scarf
Of regrets
Still swallowing your kiss
I turn my head to look through the window
A pigeon lands on the porch roof
Rain attaching to purple wings
Spring wind is everywhere
A cobweb of veins rushes across the lime wall
No need to flap wings
No need to fly away
The pigeon and I
Sprout into green buds.
2.
The blanket so warm I cannot sleep
I imagine you come over and open up my ceiling
You untie your curls of hair and wrap me tight
You pull me up and keep me hovering in the night
You turn with the winds
Sometimes you let me touch
The lake’s icy surface
The exhausted soil
The dew soaked grass
Drop me down!
You drop me down!
At that moment I become a seed
Shooting out my roots and seed-leaves
For fruit to ripen, for good wine to be brewed
And for birds’ eggs to be kept warm through the night
I hold on to these images until morning.
3.
You drop me down like sowing seeds
I am awake when the wet greenery lights up the sky
Rain drops come together to play drums on the roof
The earth softens until our breathing spreads out fast
You draw up the blanket in shyness to cover your breasts
Just in case someone drops by to tidy up the room
In that unfinished dream
Suddenly new leaves sprout up in droves
Inside each other we bury small seeds
They are dropped in with early morning kisses.
4.
The earth begins a new revolution
A faster one
The sun has gone home with darkness
The flora, footprints
And houses with doors shut tight
Worker bees fly back
When the hive and the queen bee are no more
The scent of earth finds the rain drops strange
The sky horse is delirious with speed
It staggers while tightly grasping tree branches
The eagle spreads its wings on the mountain top
The sea suffocates a river’s mouth
I kiss you for a long time to mark
This place. This hour
When clouds descend
The earth returns to the original day.
5.
A bird nest bloody with dirt
Coils from forest trees
A running stream
Woven by a vision
From you I am born into one, two, three…
Multiplying into thousands
This me
And this me too
One, two, three… I kiss you
The bird’s nest full of sunlight
Reeks of forest bulbs
And is filled with the scent of forest flowers
No matter where we are
We weave into each other to make another nest.
6.
We are together more
Before a transparent dawn rises up
Flowers suddenly wake unfolding under shades of trees
A water spider dwells in decaying straws
Vetiver roots
Are twisting deep underground
The flowing current
Keeps flowing
Holding the two of us back
Each kiss opens one more door
We hold each other’s hand tightly
Clutch each other’s arm tightly
For fear of finding loss
Bewildered as a heavy rain comes
We recognize our childish hands
Our tottering feet
Walking on earth
Perhaps the day is late
Yet we are still in each other’s arms waiting to see dawn.
7.
The photo shows you walking on a stony seashore
Incidentally I take it as another picture
Seeing you as a small dot in a field
Very lightly drawn with just a drop of color
A slope of smooth sand
The path to shore being the field
Your hair wrapped by wind around a silent branch
I wish that a fearless flock of birds could fly into this moment.
And swoops down to collect grains of paddy rice
I will forgive the hungry meadow mice emerging from their earthly dwellings
Forgive the rainstorm making heads of rice drop
Forgive the scalding sunlight
For all the sun can give
Rosy sunlight, late afternoon sunlight
Which make each blossoming rice field glow at once.
8.
Waves on the Bạch Ðằng river run over
The deposits on my shoulder
I drive a pile deeply in to anchor a kite
While thanking my father and mother
Roots of mangrove and cork tree silently twine together
Reeds at water edges stir under the sun
Brooding in the grass
Burying itself in your tiny hand
A big fish is thrown on the ground.
9.
I bend down to pick up any object - a pebble, a blade of dried straw, somebody’s thread of hair… My memories remind me of the clothes you wear, peeled off shoes, areas of flesh.
My touch lets me know the pebble is very soft, the blade of dried straw bends under its weight, the thread of hair breathes lightly.
I hold them for a very long time.
Toss them to the ground. Fling them up to the sky and catch a rain drop
10.
I stretch out my arms and breathe
My wide-spanning body
Opens up to water
My body
A tiny door
I bend my body in the coolness
And relax
I rearrange my bones
The current washes away every dead cell
I lie down in the grass and breathe in deeply
Compressing the sky
A bird call blows up a high wind
To be a seed, the hand that sows
To be fishing bait, a fish trap, seaweed…
Waves come relentlessly
Pouring onto an imaginary ship's deck.
11.
My tongue’s tip touches the cream
Shaped as a flower
A horizon drawn by somebody
I bite hastily
And eat hesitantly
Wanting you to know I am here
This half-finished cake
A flock of ducks paddling by
Nectar season for bees
A cake which has been in the oven becomes soft and fine
Place a slice next to a fragrant cup of tea and a sharp knife.
12.
I miss you as I read a book. A scene envisioned from these pages is animated in a powdery silver light. A character from the story has just washed his hands with gleaming moonlight. The flesh imbued scent of moon flows down a deep groove in the ground, from where, now and again, a reed stalk rises up and wavers. The text continues with the scene of fog descending on a small village. A young barefooted woman carries rice into the forest. A skirt of forest full of moonlight. A man lies asleep, dreaming of wild mangosteens arranged into a throne, awaiting his awakening… Light isn’t mentioned in the text. I imagine images under the moonlight. Those stories full of moonlight.
13.
From black cavities holding inserted seeds
Young shoots rise up
Birds fly
The tender roots know
That earth has embraced sky for a long time
As soon as seed coats are dropped
They release greenness to the vast fields
Brimming with sweet sap
As days grow deeper
Young shoots covering the soil turn luxuriant.
14.
The fresh rose stigmas
And the pure white petals
Open a sky of breath
I breathe green grass
Rugged rocks, an edge of abyss
The breath’s of gibbons, wild as their flesh
The flowers’ delirious scents and colors
Touch me and fade away
They fade away
My lips turn into the bill of a hummingbird
Whose wings beat constantly to stay in the same place.
15.
Bones of winter
Flesh of spring
Lilies open their immaculate, white petals
A vague fragrance
Fills up the room
I reach for the flower vase
And turn all the sepals in another direction
Bright green flower stalks lean on me
Waiting for each drop of pristine
White grounds to be blown on top like a storm.
16.
It’s fruit-bearing season for the trees
They hold the wind inside and become heavy
I am the nutrients
To relieve all trees from fatigue
I lean against a tree trunk
Listening to bird songs
My blood flows along the trees’ bones
As I pollinate the stamens
While young fruit buds
My saliva is acrid when swallowed
The wind wraps me on a tree
For its fruit to ripen.
17.
A giant flower
Hugs me in my sleep
Its stalk reaches through the sky
And I can’t see its root
Throughout my dream the flower hardly withers
As morning comes each petal shrinks
Into a bud
I have been through a lifetime of dreaming
To wake up into a lifetime of loving
As I run towards where the current of scents ends
I see a pathway
When I touch a tiny flower
All flower stems on this earth tremble.
18.
Rain drops touch my face and lightly stir.
In the sound of rain, aquatic beasts rise, their fish-like fins gliding back and forth. A shrimp bends and springs in my wave-choked body.
Let water not drizzle or drip. Let it drain into lakes and streams making rocks soften and expand.
My bare arms prop up a tree trunk. Buds are wet.
Some rain drops touch my skin and my tongue, suggesting curves and a waist of rain.
Thunder rolls at the very moment I imagine a big fish splashes its way out of my body. It emerges, then swims away calmly in the rain.
19.
I look at a flamboyant canopy and see fluffy strands of early fog move over the lake
A smile like agitated waves
You often forget this lake by your side
Its mist rises as you talk, smile and make up
On your way you feel suddenly cool
Everywhere you go the lake follows
Someone splashes water on each organ
Waves draw you away, then submerge you to their deep bottom
You open the door and look into a crowded street
An electric wire from your neighbor’s has dropped down across an artemisia pot
Nearby the lake spreads out
Turns into your eyes looking at me.
20.
Not knowing how many flowers there are in the vase
I bow down to a lotus pedestal
I remember having sat on a chair
Holding a glass of water
Leaning on the table
The lotus scent carries me to a mountain top
On its peak, clouds fly past
There is no footstep or sound from any forest animal
I remember being a bullet, a thorn
A sharp and pointed arrow soaked with lotus blood on rocks
Now why do I still think of a piercing arrow, a bullet and a thorn?
The pure scent of flowers covers the mountain rocks
It covers the bare vegetation where soil is void
A lizard grows bold
In a space vacant of human beings
I raise my head so the lotus scent no longer carries me away
Look here, one… two… petals have fallen
Touching the ground with a sound.
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