Return to Dream Harbour / Trở Về Bến Mơ

It’s summer at your place, my darling,

But autumn leaves falling in mine.

For half of your life,

You have felt troubled

Since history turned to a sad page.

Feeling sorrowful in living an exile’s life

Your teardrops fall quietly in the night

You’re like a lonely bird far away from home

And I’m like a wandering cloud 

floating to places unknown.

The Trấn Quốc temple in a misty fog

The West Lake water in silent reflection

Moss have covered many marks

Of historic places that I’d seen.

Highway at noon with harsh sunshine

Its intersection crowded with vehicle tires

In the up-and-down roads of Love

Do you miss the ladies of Thị Nghè on rainy nights?

The leaves fall gently on the Cổ-Ngư street,

fresh with the fragrance of the milkwood-pine flowers.

On the Duy-Tân street, you still stand

quietly waiting for someone at the school’s gate.

Visiting Chiêu-Thiền temple without you

In aloneness, I reminisce about our times together

Night turning cold at the Bạch Đằng river

A cup of coffee to sip in loneliness

You promised you’ll return one day

To hear the sound of the church bell resonating,

And sit on the stone bench in the park.

I long to see the quaint historic towns,

to live in the old capital Thăng Long

You are like the bright moon shining

In the vastness of the universe

The River of Life has thousands of currents

Which current will take me to a Dream Harbor?

My hair loosened and free

By the shore, I’ll wait for your ferry.

Translated by Vương Thanh, 2019