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Nguyen Hoang Duc

THE QUESTION ON TIME PASSING BY


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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