Oh Please, Not To Fade So Fast Into the Afternoon

I. Oh please, not to fade so fast into the afternoon The one that is scattering in a goldenly swooning loneliness The one that is shattering at a purply time of faintness And the one whose wind is playing with so many violins Because the wind will flow away a sky of ending summer Blending mistily the fragrances of rice straw and areca nut And you will see a piece of very strange sky Falling its colorless sunlight onto your garden Because colors had a fine crop of a reunion the previous day And are gone with traces of flying birds the later day Words turn into rocks and miss the flapping waves And I transform into a seat where you sit on Because the seat where you sit is suitable for a dream That won’t gray out the leaves voicing the greetings That won’t see the end of folk songs whispering And that won’t cease the surprise of whys and whys II. Oh please, not to fade so fast into the afternoon The one that is scattering on greenly swooning soul of moss The one that is falling on whitely faint shadows of tombs And the one that is hammering the nails on a scream Because that scream echoes so deeply and so sharply Becoming deep tone heartbeats humming in my chest And you will hear over a very slim trail A song of leaf-made trumpet from far far away Because the ancient spring coyly ran dry under the previous sky And the old stream is squeezing its skin under the later sky Water pales its face, cloud thickens grayly And I become a pale homeless guy The one homeless guy who’s addicted to being a ghost Who gazes endlessly at the slanting afternoon shadows Who looks left and right, high and low at soaring dreams And who suddenly sees the time is perfumed with flowers of blood . . . III. Oh please, not to fade so fast into the afternoon The one that is scattering with so much faintness of roses The one that is flying with sunny laurel wreaths And the one that is warming the sounding rocks on Hon Kem Because the rocks sing from that mountaintop Softly echo alongside the wings of the birds Become the round notes for you to pick up And blend the beads of youth into your heart For now, I search and see the previous day’s seat is left vacant And the later day’s voice is also bygone Yeah it is true that we are dying We are gnawing and tiredly chewing the silly madness Oh silly madness, just watch the heaven and earth where the cycles of births revolve around the faintness Where I transform into a small mosquito And hover around you and smile naively... April 2011 Translated into English by Phan Tan Hai Original poem titled "Xin d?ng v?i tan vào bu?i chi?u" - written in Vietnamese by Nguyen Luong Vy.