In Front of Lady To Thi

by Nguyen The Ky

Translated into English by Nguyen Thuy Hoa,
with revisions by John Liddy

After thousands and thousands of years
I’m pulled back by a song to a faraway road
Among mountain, stream and faint sounds
From somewhere with a lullaby in the wind…

One afternoon, in the fire and smoke of war,
Embracing her child, she longed for the return
Of her warrior from the sky’s edge in a strange,
Distant land, the poetry of her gone-away man

Pained on an empty lane, his business lost,
Ashamed to come home, he lay deep in the river
While lonely beauty waited for days and nights,
For half a life, night dew wetting her hair

Rain falling on her shoulders, sculpted by time
And the elements, a statue of love for posterity.
I now walk in the dim afternoon hearing the stone’s
soul of simple things, an effigy for our country.

Lady To Thi is not lonely now in our company,
Her pink heart still beats and her entrails spawn
In the blood-flow of millions of people,
Her eyes wide open in Nam Quan

As I walk in the dim afternoon, eternity’s
White cloud passing over her head
On mountain and mulberry field,
To live forever in us, engraved.