Thường Quán
Tường Niệm Thi
Sĩ Thanh Tâm Tuyền
thơ
Thường Quán
Tưởng Niệm Thi
Sĩ Thanh Tâm Tuyền
Một
tiếng còi xe
vang
di chân
chạy thấp bầu trời
sáng
Sáng. Đã sáng
Dưới bầu quang
người đi quá giang
đứng chờ một
cuốc khác thực vắng
Xa một hành
lang lầu đá ong đen
kèn đục tiếng
trong xoay trở rặng bạch dương
trăng cũng đục
vàng như thềm đá
mây chực đập
giật giành cửa
với tóc
Tiếng - bỏ lại
chỉ tiếc sách
rồi vài khuôn
mặt
Tiếng ậm ờ đứa
con nằm nôi
đẹp bầu ngực
đang làm sữa
trũng thấp sẫm
ngày sẽ có
nắng muộn
tiếng ho trưa
khan quíu
cỏ tranh mắt
thú hoẳng hoảng hốt
Tiếng nữa -
sữa từ máu, biển từ muối
căn nhà chực
ngã vào bọt sóng
Sóng
Đã hở
rầm trần bao nhiêu mây vần vụ
ngoài cơi hiên
treo nắng
chiếc áo len
ran xanh
tất cả hai mươi
Thường Quán
24/3/2006
Elegy to Thanh
Tam Tuyen
A siren runs
its course, a low line of feet
shuffling
under the open dawn
a
fine-weathered beginning for passengers dotting the road
By the road
you waited, a lone figure
lingering on
patiently perhaps for one late coming coach.
Things would
be much quieter, then stillness.
Behind you at
a fair distance I could see that house
the blue stone
old outpost at the edge of town, its veranda,
a saxophone
was out
Moving, muted
tones of old walls, rooftops late winter, dark winds,
hiding,
seeking, behind rows of emaciated poplars
keeping the
moon at bay
That moon, an
old tone-deaf instrument,
a stone lamp
giving a burnished solace to the descending flight of steps.
On this side
of the game, the build up of clouds.
encroaching.
This one window is to be taken away,
but not just
yet. A voice trailing off like an after-thought:
“I would
mostly miss books, I would
and, faces,
some faces”
On the other
side of a partition-wall, a new-born baby,
the ceiling
open to sunlight a fine day,
the lactating
breasts of a woman.
Grace this,
this ancient morning.
In the
outfield, the sun is harsh, overpowering
the sound of
someone coughing in the village reminding this is now Noon
against the
black and white landscape
the eyes of
many shy animals
move against
the long-stemmed grass,
the voice is
heard once again, against
the echoes of
past afternoons:
Milk comes
from Blood
the Seas from
Salt
//
Alas! the sea,
At the
departure, she cast her cold disregard,
Alas! the
house
At the last
glance, she defied and went down
to the core.
The ceiling,
its content, under the venting holes
all went. Mad.
The moment,
the whole
shadow
of a
magnificent ruin
like a human
laugh, it collapsed.
//
After that
transfiguration ritual, later, days,
among visits
of wakeful clouds
and the shock
of fallen rocks and cooling foams
(all in the
backyard of an island)
the people
would hear the repetition of your poems
written when
you were twenty
Some even
claimed seeing your single act
in a blue
jumper
hanging on a
clothe-line in the sun
like all their
childhood and youth
lumped into
one.
Nguyen Tien
Hoang
(translating
from the original elegy in Vietnamese)
