Sa Mộc – Phạm Vân Anh (Chapter 5)

LAY HEAD ON THE DAWN

Eastern slope of scorching sun, Western slope of heavy rain

Rainy West and sunny East, 50 years later still

The afar tied in backpack

He who rested in Sky domain fades into mist

The afternoon is flamed red up high, pitiful

Daisy white is the border’s cloud

Despite having been grayed as ashes

Daisy white is the border’s common reed

Though yesterday so lush

What wanders is cunninghamia

Sings for those who take up arms

…..

There still jitterred fireworks sound in the festival

Heavy rains shut off fire of a thousand houses

On migration step there found a tree’s shadow at hamlet’s

entrance

Doesn’t have a heart for exile

Ha Nhi girl stops the shuttle as the familiar hop approaches from

the slope

Rock pressed into sea

He doesn’t return

Wind howls a long howl like kite’s string rises from mountain’s

cave

Sorrowly pain as a knife’s blade slashes down woodland’s

leaves

There lies summit of sadness

Lay head on bloodstained dawn

The very end, may the sea calm

Or else the border never had a peaceful day

Sound of angry tide slushy on air, sea screams in coastal front

Seagull’s words surge on tide’s root

I strain my lungs the choking sound

Tear bursts, salty and acrid

Gullible that in the far-coming road there’re someone who aids

Gullible that in the far sea-end if I fall there’re someone who

helps

Sincere is offered to the guest

Frank is to treat people

Act as a lazy gecko

Chirping, bites its own tail

As the leaf leaves the branch, return its po to earth

To whom do we return the po?

Give the sun a sky burial amid high ground

I’m falling so fast

Dashing to the black space right in front

…..

Lines of cunninghamia tell each other about the cloud paddy field

The non-harvester field, where harvest light absents

Just the soul of the youth in formations after formations

Step gently to find myself in early-day dew

No passenger in a sampan crossing the river of Enchant

A murder of crows looks around and gossips

Starving sun falls into storm

Then burry myself in a strange domain

Day by day

Dark night, quiet dimmed widow

River slithers upon the step of moon and wind

Afternoons become a question mark

Then there will be no witness to war

Every single artifact dies once more in the storage

Conflict, disease, natural disaster, man-made disaster, poverty…

Shelf of unrest stocks up

We all claim ourselves act on behalf of righteousness

Thermonuclear bomb, supersonic jet, crusade puppet

Universe swivels, planet explodes

Time trudges

Insects whine from the ground

I see life’ station comes a loud horn

Pale white and hallucinated sunlight

Far peak invites footstep

Please come, lay your threadbare back on verdant carpet

New moon is just as you look up

Dream to sing a chorus of the everlasting

Who am I in a thousand reincarnations?

…..

Forest gone the leaves cold the faded dew

Let the moon fragmentarily faded

Let the wall mossy green

Day gone the shadow falls the afternoon’s remnant

Let my late-ripe loving dream perishes

He gone in lonesome

At river’s end, mom’s lullaby is wating

As if crustaceans prompt inside…

Washed along waterfalls of leaf

Spinned around humankind

Nation’ soul along the white common reed domain

Nation’s flag flies in the border