Top 10 Most Beautiful Poems by Poet Nguyễn Quang Thiều

The blue car after the rain
Arrived before my birth day

The boy running in the morning sun
Through the cascade of light
Proud and more beautiful than the sprouting seed
Not yet overshadowed by darkness

The car, the blue flower
The boy did not recognize
The sandy flowers drifting in the afternoon
With the softest breath in the world
And eyes more beautiful than mountain lake waters

Why don't you come closer.
Closer. And closer.
While running to hide
He deliberately says: 'Can anyone find me here?'

Little girl Hạnh Nguyên smiles
Watching the man and woman
Who will give birth to her
As they run away
Turning back and saying:
'Can anyone find me here?'

The dusty and warped horns belong to you
The weathered drums with stretched hides belong to you
The crooked cymbals since you were one year old belong to you
All rise up, lost in the distance
Mother, I see my grandmother smiling through the smoke

The funeral cart drifts into a trance
Wooden dragons with golden scales fly up in the sound of horns and drums
I tiptoe, the white mayweed grass sways
Is there anyone quietly lifting me up?

I want to hide in the funeral cloth of the village
I want to cover my cough with the sweet-smelling incense
I see my grandmother in silk sitting amidst a thousand candles
She pours a jar of clear rainwater, waiting for my return

The radiant funeral cart - my toy
I’m playing eagerly, Mother, do you hear me laughing quietly?
Loneliness and I, two children tired of all the tricks
We chase each other under the curved arch of the funeral cart
We fly behind the flags and banners
To the village mound where I will sleep in a yellow silk robe on a fragrant betel leaf
But there, you’ll never wash my face

I love those horns, drums, and cymbals that beat with longing
All of them love me with sadness and worry
The final melody of this love plays softly and gently places me on the earth
Then leads me along the white mayweed path
Back to where you’ll wash my face.

Late winter, 1991

My love, I’ve returned
The birds call out to each other at the riverbank in the fading light
The sky turns a mossy hue
The wings of birds split the vast winds in two
I come back to one side of the river
My heart full of longing, but I don’t call for the boat

Your hair has turned ash-gray
The moon is waning, the cough grows old
Each night breaks with the call of a rooster
Dreams, though felt, remain empty
Early spring mingles with the dusk of winter
You carry your fate through the mayweed fields
I return with the sting of gunpowder
The scorched forest still smoldering in the air

My love, I’ve returned
The old grass keeps our promises from the past
I come back calling your name in the rain
Your hair once reaching your waist
The last flowers of the jasmine weep
Who carries the fragrance of pomelo, hesitant to walk away
The absence of a hand, the disheveled hair
The absence of footprints, erasing the marks of time
I return, and the wind carries
Blowing from the dawn shore to the dusk bank
My love, like a kite,
Rises with all its pain
I return, becoming a season of betel
Your lips red again in the distance
If you remember our love one day
Be like the mountain that remembers the clouds at the horizon

My love, tomorrow if you sing a lullaby
Don’t sing of the war days
Sing of the green grass
Sing of spring with its budding branches
Sing of laughter in every dream
Sing of the joy of the boat carrying passengers across the riverbank
Sing of the stork flying home with white legs
Sing of the vows made a thousand years ago

My love, I’ve returned
The bright moon flows across the quiet night
If you still love me
Love that person to become a couple
My heart becomes a cloud in the sky
Floating in the song of people who love each other.

Source: The Soldiers of the Village, Military Publishing House, 1996

Dear Mother,
I have come back to you
The winds blow through the garden at the end of summer
The leaves rustle with the secret letters of the past

The war has ended at the end of the road
The areca nuts still fall in the evenings filled with longing
The sparrows have nested for many seasons
I have returned, can you see me, Mother?

The grass has begun to grow in the bomb craters
Oh, our country rises once again
The wind has blown for four thousand years, and so have you
Mother, your tears fill the lines of your wrinkles

I have returned to you this evening
But you cannot see me
The cat stays up with you
Quietly following your hunched shadow

The war is over, and I will always believe
I fall asleep under the silver-leaved forest
When the wind blows, I wake
Following the wind, I return to see you behind me

The marbles still roll across the yard
The old fishing rod holds memories
The paper kites of the children fly again
The moonlit flute finds its way to my home

I have returned, tiptoeing
As I did when I was a child, to burst into tears
I have returned, Mother, please don’t cough so much
The lamp-flower blooms brightly through the night

The rooster calls you from the far corner of the garden
I still shout for the sweet starfruit
The areca trees bloom again, Mother, they will bear fruit
In the midst of the dream, the children’s voices echo through the house

The war is over, and I will always believe
I did not die, I simply did not grow any older
I will remain forever eighteen
Like the afternoon I said goodbye to you

I’ve entered our kitchen
Sitting with you, my hands held up to the fire
The dish of shrimp your hands cooked will never cool
The rice is laughing, can you see me, Mother?

The chopsticks are still there, from the meals of long ago
The old door hesitates in the strange night wind
Mother, please don’t sit up too late
Don’t keep combing your hair through the night

The golden starfruit has fallen throughout autumn
You sew the clothes in the afternoon, sweeping the yard
The birds chirp, shaking your hair with their song
I have returned, Mother, do you feel better at night?

I have returned in the thunder of April
The red flame tree blooms as I laugh in the wind
I have returned in the harvest season
The new rice smells like my silent laugh

I have returned, the fire crackling in the hay
I see your proud and longing face
I have returned when the village celebrates Tet
The peach blossoms open, their sweet lips ready to kiss

The war is over, and I will always believe, Mother
Your comrades return, carrying my unfinished letter
Oh, that letter with just one line to call you
Is the longest letter in the world.

Source: The Soldiers of the Village, Military Publishing House, 1996

She left like the final breath of spring
Disappearing behind the trees, where nests filled with eggs lay
Her voice, once filled with despair before the silent wall
And one silent person standing at the end of the road

The footsteps grew softer, and she returned
The first day of her youth
The wallflower bloomed on the wall
A lark, drunk on its own song, swayed in the air

It was the day the tree birthed every single leaf
And the flowers flowed endlessly from the trunk
It was the day the village children took white stones
And set up an old game between two people

Then summer arrived with a colossal flood of light
The nests soared into the sky, with thousands of wings
An invisible hand gently twisted time, making two people disappear
On the field, sparkling with water and flowers.

It’s the end of winter now
The village is full of girls who have married and moved far away
A bit of sunlight fades along the house’s alley
I walk, I stand, and wonder aimlessly.

The first signs of spring appear
With the blossoming of apricot and peach flowers
Does my love carry any sign of spring?
It grows green through the howling storm of rain.

The mustard plants have turned into vegetables
The village girls have grown up
Walking down the street, I hear someone call me "sister"
At night, I gaze into the lantern, lost in thought.

And so the days pass quickly
As the silkworms spin their threads in the sunlight
Then winter returns again
The village girls marry, and I remain...

End of Winter 1983

Source: Winter in Poetry, a collection of poems by various authors, Published by the Writers' Association, 2007

"The bird's call" takes me across Hau River
The ferry tilts on the waves
The sky on that side feels like you lifting the hem of your dress
Don’t cry, don’t cry, the wind is full of worry.

How quiet the Western City is now
Only the shore where you stand, reaching out
It’s not the waves that keep us apart
It’s just the river has two shores.

I float adrift, but I don't sink
I can’t let the shores erode towards each other
I can’t tie the boat to two banks
So forever I remain a widow on your shore.

Source: "Knowledge Today" issue 236, February 10, 1997

The little sparrow is dead
It died in the night, just before dawn, as the storm approached
That night, I lay under the covers, hearing the wings beat against the door
The warmth of my blankets held me tight
And I slept soundly until the storm eased.

The old nest in the bamboo tube by the house was howling in the evening wind
No longer could I hear the wings return
And the pure morning songs.
It died in front of my cold door
A neighbor’s cat took it away
It left behind in the nest some eggs
Those baby birds would never be born.

Night after night, as I tried to sleep
The door would shake with the sound of wings
The eggs would roll into my dreams
The sound of them rolling was like rocks sliding down a mountain.

Source: Vietnamese Textbook 5, Volume One - Educational Publishing House, 200

The Day River flows into my life
Like my mother carrying burdens down the alley after a long day's work
I bury my face in her sweat-soaked back, the coolness of the river from the night
The years living far from home feel like missed steps
The dream echoes with the sound of fish slipping off the hook like a sob
Silently breaking within me, silently breaking at the source
Spreading across my pain, my mother's hair stands at the worn-out shore, waiting
A dry, withered corn stalk
Forever sad in the rustling leaves.

On distant afternoons from home, I wish the river would rise to the sky so I could see it
So my eyes, full of longing, would be like the small hollows along the banks, where minnows make their nests, soaking in the river's rainwater.

Oh, Day River! Today I return
The sails of fairy tales have sailed far away, bearing sorrow
You carried lips as red as ripe strawberries to the opposite shore on a day when the river ran dry
All I meet now are the white corn husks on the bank
I remember the dress you dropped at the silent shore under an old moon.

Day River, oh Day River… today I return
My mother is now old like the sand on the shore
Oh, the scent of dry sand, the scent of my mother's hair
I kneel to scoop up sand to my face
And I cry.
The sand slips from my face into the river's flow.

Day River, 1991

We can't nourish each other with the light of the stars
You said that, asking me not to cry
Your hair is falling onto my chest
Like roots creeping sadly through gravel and stone

How many nights has it been, we no longer know
We sit together, breathing beneath the stars
Wonderful stars, but I cannot reach them
I can never pick them for you

I called you back, unwilling to let you go
You are fragile, trembling with fear
You lean on me, I lean into the bitterness
The Earth leans on the distant stars

The night is desolate, just the two of us
No food, no shelter, we sit trembling in each other's arms
What will we begin when the dawn awakens?
Shall we head towards the sea, or return to the forest?

Where is the Earth tonight, a million years ago
Or a million years into the future, with dust and golden clouds?
And we, too, in our suffering and joy
Are we the last two, or the first?

How many nights has it been, we no longer know
We are like two newborns
With the breath of someone just recovered from illness
We embrace, gazing upwards, calling to the stars.

1991