by Chế
Lan Viên
Please, I am only here,
neither waiting nor expecting
Who brings back
Spring, it’s only the sorrow you bring
To me, everything
is utterly without meaning
And everything is
nothing but the meaning of suffering!
Who can return to
previous autumn’s eves,
To pick up for me
the scattered fallen brown leaves?
Gathering fresh
flowers, and when their petals fall away,
Bring them here
to block the coming of spring days!
Who knows, I, while
I might be in an imaginary dreaming
So love autumns
that I obstruct the love of spring?
There is a man so
poor that he does not know about spring
And stubbornly carries
the old coat of autumn’s ending
There is a child
who has never known crying
Who suddenly and
unintentionally bursts out laughing!
Alas! How I miss
so much! Oh how I miss so much!
A wandering autumn
bird that is lost in the distant horizon and dust.
Translated from Vietnamese
into English
by Hương Cau Cao
Tân
on 14 July, 2019
in British Columbia, Canada