Thoughts of Hanoi

Nguyen Thi Vinh (Vietnam)

Translated by Nguyen Ngoc Bich with Burton Raffel and W.S. Merwin

The night is deep and chill Stainless blue sky,

As in early autumn. Pitchblack jubilant voices of children
It thickens after each lightning flash. stumbling through the alphabet
I dream of Hanoi: village graybears strolling to the temple,
Co-ngu Road grandmothers, basking in twilight sun,
chewing betel leaves
ten years of separation while the children run

the way black sliced by a frontier of hatred. low is all that now?
I want to bury the past Or is it obsolete?
to burn the future Are you like me,
still I yearn reliving the past,
still I fear imagining the future?
those endless nights Do you count me as a friend
waiting for dawn.
Or am I the enemy in your eyes?
Brother, Brother, I am afraid
how is Hang Dao now? that one day I’ll be with the March-North Army
How is Ngoc Son temple? meeting you on your way to the South.
Do the trains still run I might be the one to shoot you then
each day from Hanoi or you me
to the neighboring towns? but please
To Bac-ninh, Cam-giang, Yen-bai, not with hatred.
the small villages, islands
of brown thatch in a lush green sea? For don’t you remember how it was,
you and I in school together,
The girls plotting our lives together?
big bright eyes Those roots go deep!
ruddy checks
four-piece dresses Brother, we are men
raven-bill scarves conscious of more
sowing harvesting , than material needs.
spinning weaving How can this happen to us
all year round, my friend
the boys my foe?
plowing
transplanting
in the fields
in their shops
running across
the meadow at evening
to fly kites
and sing alternating songs.