By Lê Vĩnh Tài, translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
April
noon, there’s no sunlight
all in a blinding fog.
.
the citizens
like sheep in the meadows
in the streets
.
drifting.
_____
tháng 4
buổi trưa không có nắng
mọi thứ mù sương…
.
nhân dân
như đàn cừu trên cánh đồng
đầy đường
.
trôi…
–
NB. The complexity of words provokes buried emotional scars I thought I’ve since forgotten. Passing comments, much like the smell of engine oil takes me back to my childhood in the hull of a tiny carved wooden boat, then I would suddenly get a message from my mum “come for dinner tonight if you’re not busy”.
My mother with her kind heart, her patience in enduring the years my father was gone. Twenty seven years old (like I am there in the snapshot), with four tiny children. There was no Medicare, no social service, no housing, no… She was then, still a child.
SONGNGUTAITRAM 