Ly Hoang Ly
PROMETEO
Revista Latinoamericana de Poesía
Número 81-82. Julio de 2008.
A SHORT ANTHOLOGY
OF VIETNAMESE POETRY
Ly Hoang Ly
1975
The Woman and the Old House
Dedicated to house # 14
The finely carved chairs are covered with tattered velvet/ For years the fireplace remains as cold as marble
White marble is clogged with black dirt
The woman dressed in her white tunic sits cross-legged/ On the unique velvet covered chair still in good shape
The window cuts through the rain pouring like the nocturnal sky spreading amniotic fluid
Rusted bars loosen
The woman dressed in her white tunic sits cross-legged
On the unique chair still in good shape
Walls stained by nocturnal rain in years
Have their yellow colour covered with mildewed moss
It pours stark mad outside
Wanting to cast secret unexpressed sorrows into the old house
The woman dressed in her white tunic sits cross-legged
Distressingly sad and unswerving
Bacteria that cling on to each dust particle
On the watch for the proliferation of mildewed moss
Underneath the mirror-like sparkling plank-bed
Is the night of the last century
Underneath the mirror-like sparkling plank-bed
Cockroaches wag their antennae and sniff
The woman dressed in her white tunic sits cross-legged
Keeping the child shes holding in a steady and challenging posture
Cockroaches flock out from underneath the plank-bed
Starting to gnaw the chair still in good shape.
The woman dressed in her white tunic sits cross-legged
Draining dry her eyes to absorb the night
Slow and steady her body disintegrates
Draining dry her eyes soaking up thousands of rainfalls
The old house is submerged in tears
Oe oe oe *
The old house shivers and wakes up
Cockroaches crawl helter-skelter on the tunic that falls down whitening the brick floor
The little girl in her white gown gently comes down from the unique velvet covered chair still in good shape
With her very limpid round eyes
Dumbfounded she makes a tour
Touching with her hand the fireplace, the window, the walls and all other mildewed and mossy items
To find her hand completely covered with bacteria
Her deadly pale hand
Turns the doorknob and she walks out into the rainy and stormy night
The door filled with ancient calligraphic seal characters sinks in behind
At the very moment the night suddenly dies
Rain-like drops of sunshine fall down unceasingly
Washing the soiled hand clean.
* (Onomatopoea) wail of new-born infant.
Translated by Vu Anh Tuan
Ly Hoàng Ly (born 1975) graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City School of Literature and Arts and then shifted to painting, in particular with oils. She has recently received a number of prizes for her poetry from newspapers in Ho Chi Minh City.
