Life
Time passes by
What do I have?
Strings over strings over time
Oh! the mayflies
Never stop
But queue line in line
Jump into
The uncaring eternal flame
Sacrificing their bodies, calmly
In the game to light up for life!
Time flies
Gone with all the rivers
green hair
red hair
and blonde
out to the estuary of ins and outs
fade to white the life.
White!
White the green hair
White the breath
White the bones and skin
But do my hands turn white the whole life?
In front of the door of reincarnation
When Forever tilts his head and asks
Do you bring the days were named of you
To my kingdom?
Oh how harsh
Time!
Moments by moments
Rise up like a flood
And like a life-worm
Rodent me
On every single hair
Every single blood vessel
Every single fiber and sinew
You nibble at my youth
Chew on the sole
I go
On the way to Permanent
But that’s not enough!
You still eat out
The road
My shoes stamped
Gnaw out stones
Then, skin and flesh of the road
To see
After all, what meaning is still there
On the shoe soles?
Life
Time passes by
What have I done?
The question keeps coming, again and again
To see the certificate of each moment
Begging to naturalize
Into the book of life.
The question festers in every line
I write!
The question gets stuck in the cup of tea
I drink!
The question jumps from the white hair I’ve plucked to
Green hair!
The question does not shiver in the water on bathing skin.
Obsess!
And the question falls from the high thought area
Down all blood vessels, vibrate
And pour down the shoe’s heel
Pain the feet, for each beat:
Life
Time passes by
What have I done so far?
(Nguyễn Hoàng Đức, Hanoi 16 Jan 1997)
Translated by Lệ Hằng
Painting: Veneta Docheva (1974- ), Bulgarian
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