Top 20 Exquisite Poems by Poet, Professor, Ph.D. Phùng Đắc Cam

Rain falls without sorrow

For the rain sweeps the earthly dust away

I've bathed in that refreshing rain

You return like the wind

Reviving my worn-out self

Rain keeps falling, wind keeps blowing

I sleep in a peaceful dream

Tomorrow brings dawn

Tomorrow will come

I hope for a rain shower

To wash away all the wariness of battle

To welcome your gentle breeze, oh dear!

3/7/73, Compongcham, Cambodia

Dedicated to Quyên

Autumn arrives with green rice flakes

Red leaves fall

Oh, Hanoi

Where you dwell

The evening silhouette like Hoan Kiem Lake

I stand bewildered amidst Hanoi's autumn

As mesmerized as before your grace

The loc vung flowers, grains of rice transform magically

Like your sparkling, enchanting eyes

I remain melancholic in your absence

Like the morning breeze suddenly returns

Like scattered thin clouds peacefully float

Longing for you eloquently in autumn twilight

I wander along the ancient streets

Thinking you walk beside me

Where's your voice, where's your alluring smile

I wistfully recall your soft embrace

Autumn rain arrives, stirring my heart

Leaves wet with dew amidst the ancient streets

The aroma of green rice drifts with the wind

Whose cloak resembles the green lotus leaf

I love autumn, I'm not indifferent

Just as I love you, endlessly poignant.

Grant me a fresh morning

The trees outside forever green through all seasons

Grant me a siesta's sleep

Distant birdsongs sway the hammock of affection

Grant me a cool, gentle breeze

The scent of corn blowing from the green river

Grant me the aroma of countryside smoke

The fragrant scent of straw clinging to childhood

Grant me a fleeting moment of reverie

So I may forget and drift away with life.

Christmas 2016.

My mother hailed from Lâm Thao

Tứ Xã village, renowned for ages

Singing xoan resonates in the communal yard

Drums joyfully echo Trò Trám, earth and sky tilted

My mother orphaned at a young age

Her hat followed her as a lifetime laborer

No land, we lived by the riverside

Shrimp nets and fishing boats filled our days

My mother couldn't stay in this land

Across the Cái river, intoxicated by love

My father had a wife already

My mother's life marked by perpetual sorrow

My father loved her graceful hair

My father loved her enchanting eyes

My father valued fate's handiwork

To steer the boat and meet a destined spouse

My mother steadied uncertain steps

A home, children, grandchildren she embraced.

11/5/2012.

Where your homeland lies, I return

Breezy nights, summer moon hangs

Paths winding through streams and passes

Each hill, each slope, laden with memories

Cradling cherished moments so fine

Today, before dawn breaks, I come back

Forest streams sing in the midnight hour

Longing hearts, beneath the summer moon, meet

Here, in this familiar land

Where lamplights once divided us

Here, the day you departed

Your hair still carries the sweet scent of home

Here, the weight of unspoken promises

Unfamiliar yet longed for, countless days

Now, embraced in warm arms

Rocking gently, our days entwined

No fear of distant roads, of bonds unbroken

No need to ask, it's where you are.

1,2,3,4/10/1974 - Lộc Ninh, Lò Gò.

You led me back to the old place

It's been 18 years

Returning today

The green road still under the warm golden sun

Guiding us to where we once dwelled

Here, the school where I studied in yesteryears

Still dons the same somber brown

The gravel road bustling

The green rows refreshing to the eyes

The houses flaunting myriad colors

Taking us back to the serene past

The church bobbing up and down

The bustling central market

The coffee cups clinking in summer days

Beneath the foot of the Huddinge hospital bridge

You took me to the bus station

Heading to Masmos

From the water tower street

To the golden grass carpet

Both sides adorned with fairy-tale green trees

Days gone by

Looking back today

Time may be harsh

But the past eagerly welcomes us back

Like a child revisiting home

Beyond words.

Flemmingberg, June 2008.

Oh green, lush and sprawling

Forest and streams winding around hills

The sun pours like honey in the sky

Cars like ants on roads of golden silk

Skyscrapers swaying in the breeze

Down-town bustling with restaurants and diners

CDC hidden within the woods

With many colleagues who've known each other

The path of deep scientific inquiry

All for the health of humanity tomorrow

The bridge connecting to everywhere

Exchanging science, the horizon of humanity

Parting ways amidst a whirlwind

Human warmth amidst the azure sky.

Atlanta, Georgia, May 2000

Trung Du, homeland in memory

Left far, never returned to this day

Yearning deep for the homeland's banks

Missing you endlessly, the evening of our village rendezvous

Pitying the boat, solitary in wait

Does it sense your silent presence?

Rice flowers ablaze by the river

Do they know the sorrow of parting?

Rice flowers, essence of our homeland's scent

Igniting passion in human hearts

Oh you, far away, return to me

Come back to warm our lips' promises

Return to revive our old love

Oh you, in dreamlike attire as before.

Inspired by rice flowers, the Covid-19 pandemic, 20/3/2020.

For Phương Anh

Though we still remember the red skies of March, the rice flowers

The misty water surface, the wind and rain

Then April rushes in, hurriedly

Over the fields, the early sun spreads its intoxicating scent

April returns, dizzying like the rice fields in our girlhood days

Blooming, fervent in the season of love

The swallows fly off to welcome the return of summer

The sky bluer, as if wanting to convey so much more

April, the month of shifting hopes

On your lips, the rosy smile of grace

That love warms a dreamy land

Where the horizon's new sunlight emerges

Oh April, brimming with memories

Beloved Saigon, it welcomed us back then

Victory Day never to be forgotten

The city brimming with intoxicating moments.

Long Biên, April 14, 2020

Savoring a piece of stone cake

The older, the more we savor life's sweetness

Remembering our parents during birth

Every year, celebrating the fifteenth day of the first lunar month

Saving grains, counting money

Loving our children, molding stone cake dough

The cake's fragrance is the scent of homeland

Traveling far with our children

Reminiscent of chilly autumn days

Remembering rice fields, dreaming of the way home

How beautiful our motherland was in the past

Dragonflies twisting in the sky

Paddling drums with mother, rocking the cradle

Stone cake, fragrant with the flavor of life bestowed upon us.

January 19, 2015

Once upon a time in the Truong Son era

Sharing salted fish, forest-squeezed rice

Sharing the chill of fever and cold shivers

Bitter quinine, the road still long

Hanging hammocks in the old forest together

Sitting by the rocky stream, sipping homeland tea

Climbing steep slopes in slippery rain

Deep ravines, ambushes lurking around us

The swamp, feared by aircraft, never broke our spirit

Three months in the Truong Son range

Engraving the essence of the war-torn path

The road of youthful vigor

Forging ahead despite rugged and thorny trails

The iron bond of friendship never fades

Sharing bunkers through long nights in the East

Today, by the glowing hearth

Amidst Hanoi's blue night, the heart wanders

Forest companion in the Truong Son era

A milestone in life impossible to forget.

March 2006

Love between people is not easily shared

You picked may grass, whose sorrows are you carrying?

Love between people is inherently complicated

If only a lifetime of beauty fades away

You return to the distant sky

Picking may grass, your beloved homeland.

Evening of March 28, 2020

Returning to the green fields

With the scent of pomelo flowers, with orchid branches

Rustling by the village bamboo hedge

The creek flows leisurely all year round

The creek's cool water bathes childhood

Mother's folk songs still echo

In the distance, the drum urges the village yard

People rejoice in the bamboo festival, the apricot blossom

The old alley leads us in

Where is the figure of mother every evening?

Under the moonlight, father releases the kite

Counting stars, we dream of distant things

The harvest season is bustling

Golden fields of rice, silk worms spin

Someone at home is dreaming

Here, someone writes poetry for me

Homeland forever beautiful, charming bamboo

Folk songs deeply resonate with our hometown feelings.

A cool breeze greeted the morning

Thinking of you on a distant day

Noon sun returning with a sway

Imagining you beneath the tin roof, a stay

Evening rainstorms fiercely play

Missing you in that slippery way

Back home, warm lights guide the way

Missing you - a solitary shade in the fray

Oh dear, love wanders in disarray

Will there be a time when longing fades away.

Nighttime, 3/7/73.

Love, just two words bound

Until distance tears our hearts apart

Long nights under a solitary lamp

Loneliness with half a pillow, aching damp

Missing you, a land so far

A willow stands amidst life's memoir

Missing you, beyond mountains, beyond miles

Sickness and cold, who knows, who wiles

Believing in you, days enough

Sunshine, rain, bitterness, tough

Bonds engraved deep in bone and marrow

Moments of love, often lost in the morrow?

Loving you, young age, sharp mind

Our love story, cherry blossoms, kind

Far yet near, intertwined.

Chí Phèng, 24th hour, 18/6/73.

Rice flowers challenge the sun's glare

Amidst verdant rice fields, girls fair

Bang trees embrace the spring's warm air

Painting a countryside picture rare

Bauhinia blooms sway with grace

Awaiting the ripest red embrace

Birds weave through branches with ease

Summer's whispers soon to tease

Nature ceaselessly undergoes its change

Our hearts lost in an endless range

The world's rhythm swift and strange

Granting us a moment to exchange

Oh, people, spring beckons, so strange

Can anyone, indifferent, remain?

Inspired, 10/4/2007.

Speak no more, stay not silent like a shell

Return to poetry, to life of old's swell

Life remains as beautiful as poetry's gleam

Welcoming spring amidst myriad dreams

Conceal not in verse what thoughts reside

Let poetry be the companion where secrets confide

Since ancient times, poetry's been a dear friend

Accompanying us joyfully till life's end.

Bangkok, night of 24/1/2008.

Late night, a glimpse of spring

Suddenly joy, then sorrow so vast

Joy fades ere it arrives at last

Sorrow deep within, the heart feeling so lost

Spring comes, the fields so green

At the crossroads of Duong River, the old land serene

Wells and banyan trees, memories seen

Village gates, tales told, beloved homes

Why do we still wander, a hundred dusks

Yet to grasp a simple truth, the journey's end

Will we ever dare to count the cost

What lingering doubts at autumn's road bend

Gone by, a gloomy age

Deep forests, chilling cold, futures blind

Thirty years, a lengthy stage

Life's not easy, for fools are hard to find

Spring awakens from a dream

When will true joy's sunrise gleam?

Spring rains, footprints cool and mild

Dew moistens grass, under skies so blue and wild

Wishing for carefree steps so free

In a heart so tranquil, can it be?

Life's journey's tough, oh friend of mine

Foolish in youth, then mad in decline

Joy yet escapes from sorrow's vine

Blame not others, blame fate's design

Though a hundred plans we may refine

Yearning for a little peace, so fine and benign.

Year of Binh Tuat Tet.

A wealth of knowledge, science so grand

Our minds small, talents so bland

Success today, from failures so vast

From sweat and tears, friendships that last

Just a country bumpkin, that's all

Exploring

Passionate

In the depths of the dense forest.

Upon being appointed professor, 10/2004.

April returns, reminiscing that April of yore

How poignant

How beautiful

Days passing through Củi hamlet

Lying in the rubber forest hammock

Longing for the day to return

Then Củ Chi's smoke and fire

Through Trảng Bàng, the road of liberation

Both sides adorned with colorful flags

Back then, not daring to dream far

Just hoping for a gathering day

Suddenly the country erupted

A millennial event

You and I on the same dreamy convoy

Entering the glamorous city

Saigon night, day bearing the century's name

Exuberant, tumultuous, the country transforms

30th April, national grandeur

Where you and I reunite

April returns, laden with memories

Until today, April ponders

The country undergoes myriad changes.

19/4/2019.