They destroy while we want to live - Che Lan Vien

One translucent day I leave the city
to visit my home, the land of Champa. Here are stupas gaunt with yearning,
ancient temples ruined by time,
streams that creep alone through the dark
past peeling statues that moan of Champa. Here are dense and drooping forests
where long processions, lost souls of Champa,
march; and evening spills through thick,
fragrant leaves, mingling with the cries of moorhens. Here is the field where two great armies
were reduced to a horde of clamoring souls.
Champa blood still cascades in streams of hatred
to grinding oceans filled with Champa bones. Here too are placid images: hamlets at rest
in evening sun, Champa girls gliding homeward,
their light chatter floating
with the pink and saffron of their dresses. Here are magnificent sunbaked palaces,
temples that blaze in cerulean skies.
Here battleships dream on the glossy river, while the thunder
of sacred elephants shakes the walls. Here, in opaque light sinking through lapis lazuli,
the Champa king and his men are lost in a maze of flesh
as dancers weave, wreathe, entranced,
their bodies harmonizing with the flutes. <p>All this I saw on my way home years ago
and still I am obsessed,
my mind stunned, sagged with sorrow
for the race of Champa.

Little sister, do you know why humanity passes down
ancient tales, from hand to hand, from generation to generation?
It is so that each generation can add something that was not there yesterday.
...The miracle of today is in the hands of those who go unshod, their hearts bare.

Pale, cold torchlight.
Slender shadows from a row of tall bamboo
Flicker dimly on the coffin of a child
Carried through the chilling dew.
A sobbing old woman lays bare her heart.
I stare at the countless stars in silence, asking myself:
Since when has my soul been destroyed?
And might that dark coffin of a child
Not contain my corpse as well?
Vaguely, from the immensity of space,
I heard a star cast a soft reply.