Nguyen Si Dai was born in 1956 in his hometown of Ha Tinh, used to join the army in the war against the US. He graduated from the Faculty of Literature, Hanoi University, is a doctor of literature, a member of the Vietnam Writers Association. He has published poetry in newspapers since 1975. In addition to writing poetry, he also writes criticism and literature research. Loihayydep.vn would like to introduce his beautiful poems.

Poem

Green leaf

The man who patched up the sky
Citadel builders
I’m just a leaf
My job is green
1997
Source: Soldier’s Heart (poetry), Nguyen Si Dai, Youth Publishing House, 1998

Poem

“If you knew I would miss you”

If only you knew I love you
I’m sure the mail is not slow by accident
If only you knew I didn’t sleep
Is this blanket blanket light?
1990
Source: Soldier’s Heart (poetry), Nguyen Si Dai, Youth Publishing House, 1998

Poem: Loving each other is loving each other like this

Loving each other is loving and remembering like this

I have you, I’m used to having you
It’s lonely now, the house is meaningless
I don’t know for whom the fire is lit
I wake up alone and sleep alone
Tonight the sky will rise again
The street is still full of people walking like water
I don’t know which way to turn
Well come back…
The page of the book is sadder.
Open the picture to meet the black velvet eyes
The white shoulder still feels like breathing
If you know my longing
Has she turned into Miss Tam to stay by her side?
You mentioned my name a few times
How many times have you tried to follow the goose feather
I have seen each other day by day
How can I get over this separation?
Your poem, I can’t hold your hand
So the melody reverberated back
Clouds pull impatient horizons
Loving each other is loving and remembering like this?
Source: Soldier’s Heart (poetry), Nguyen Si Dai, Youth Publishing House, 1998

Poem: I give you sixteen years old

I pay you sixteen years old

I pay you sixteen years old
Where the cloud is like a student’s page
The blue drifting ink line is a far away color
Every sky blooms thousands of flowers
I pay you sixteen years old
Lips flutter when remembering a person’s name
Spring is sweet, winter is sweet
When alone, call your eyes!
I pay you sixteen years old
The hair swears to let go of a far sail
Thinking of you, I feel guilty
Petals fall on the porch…
I pay you sixteen years old
What has become cramped is gone
I pay you sixteen years old
Feet move the whole horizon!
I pay you sixteen years old
Packed with only memories
Village and street, old friends, old school
A warm embrace of childhood!
Who knows after twenty years old
Everywhere you step into life, you will meet an ambush
May death be like a salvation
The crystal sky broke under my feet
So here you are, I’ll return the green arch
Preserved after so many storms
Give me red flower lanes
Falling like rain on the white shirt of a student
I give you the age of autumn
New flavor of nuggets, lotus leaf for the first time
Pay ten fingers to comb through your hair
Look at your eyes, twinkling stars at night
I give you the tender young leaf
Lips quivering the unspeakable
I’ll pay you for all the stupid things
Take time to keep your chest full of moon
I give you the summer of drunkenness
Along the riverside, Truong Chi stood and sang in the afternoon
How can a thousand stars burn?
Wish I could cry sorry with the rain!
I give you the silver hair on your head
Waiting forever, how much water flows
And all when I just arrived
Dissolved at the age of sixteen, the moon…
Source: Soldier’s Heart (poetry), Nguyen Si Dai, Youth Publishing House, 1998

Poem: Where I’m Going

Where I go

Where I go, there is a areca boat
Falling quietly in the garden of dew and wet grass
Your childhood will soon be caught
The high-pitched rustling of the blue sky.
Where I come back, spring purple bud of lemon garden
Purple oval flowers, purple hyacinth flowers
A small bamboo branch has a day when a guest bird comes
Until now, waiting is still shaking…
Where one day catch a damselfly
He flapped his wings as bait for the ants
Unknown place later when grown up
Britishize the thin-winged damselfly in life
Where I go, my mother’s song
I heard it through another lullaby
Time passed lullabies turned into tears
Tears of humanity in his heart.
Where I go, the small ditch is still green
Purple ink has flown into the past
There is still a brilliant sunset
Lying on the grass, drinking the stars in the distance.
Where I come back, left town is still the old days
The people who trade, the people who love the good people
Starfruit down sweet and sour soup mother cooked
Three cast iron bag of gold, always wise to contribute.
Where I go, summer is still innocent
The sound of cicadas sings in the back of the neck
Tick, tick, your eyes are so clear
What do you see in the eyes of the tick?
In the autumn afternoon, yellow melon powder, flying bee wings
The sound of chickens clacking at noon…
The house is absent, the curtain door is open
The colors, the bar far, the wife come to offer…
Where now the leaves are covered with thousands of clouds
Sunshine green, father’s hair turning gray in the afternoon
Grab a handful of home land and look at the bottom of the water
He staggered along the plow.
Where I come back, the season is windy and lucky
The rain of the transplanted fields, cross the face of the person, bowing
March thunder, rice puberty girls
Have your eyes ever crinkled a crow’s foot?
The place to gather by the winter fire
I can rub my hands for warmth
You may become a memory
In many fond memories of his hometown.
Source: Soldier’s Heart (poetry), Nguyen Si Dai, Youth Publishing House, 1998

Poem: “You are a transparent stream at the bottom of the stars”

“You are a transparent stream in the bottom of the starry sky”

You are a stream in the starlight
I’m a thirsty night deer
Quench your thirst, bewildered by the beautiful moon
Standing for the rest of my life drinking a nothingness
1986
Source: Soldier’s Heart (poetry), Nguyen Si Dai, Youth Publishing House, 1998

Poem: Rice tree

Rice

Slender rice plants at home
Thousands of years of storms and floods swirled through this land
Mother and father leaning down the plow
Flip the land on both sides and build crops
Fly the flag against time
Through hundreds of landslides, thousands of bombs fell
Green leaves soar to the sky
The golden cotton is laden for the person holding the hand
Strong roots suck the soil
But should be ancient with life, rice
Debt of tears and sweat
Loyalty radiates down the shoulder of a warm person
Weeping rice plants at home
I came from the big rice ball to life
Phu Loc, February 1983
Source: Soldier’s Heart (poetry), Nguyen Si Dai, Youth Publishing House, 1998

Poem: This autumn, Hanoi…

This autumn, Hanoi…

Like a poem brought from the time of moving the capital
I cherish the autumn of Hanoi
Thirty-six flag lines that year
Red color flies in the eyes of the birth mother
I grew up on the banks of Le Thai To blue tamarind
The morning sun exposes a white paper background
Five doors with petals spread proudly
Young grass running along the Red River
The heart is like a flag without a wrinkle
Seventeen years old sweet first kiss forever
Turn off the page before the phoenix flower season burns
Truong Son Pass, Pen Tower built in the soul
I returned thirty-six fragrant sugar
Autumn clouds are white in the mother’s hair
You appear in the eyes of a thousand girls
The way of Co Ngu with purple flowers and half the sky
Light incense on the roof of the street where bombs fall
The old autumn background rises to the new scaffolding
Still know there’s a love waiting
I spent ten years in the dusty street going back…
The words of autumn you sing to me again
Small doorway, chrysanthemum has just blossomed
This fall, I’m full
Hanoi, Hanoi in my hands…
1980
Source: Soldier’s Heart (poetry), Nguyen Si Dai, Youth Publishing House, 1998

Poem: Outside the city – I don’t come to visit

Out of town – I don’t come to visit

Out of town – I don’t come to visit
If you’re busy, that’s okay
Bao is the way to go far away
Here and there, the mountain, the hill for oranges!
Out of town – I don’t come to visit
Hometown two rooster chrysanthemums miss love
Golden silk the day before brother
The cherished moonlight has covered the shore
Frog calls the rice tops waving flags
Seven red rice flowers through the green nuggets season
Persimmons cling to trees and branches
A bunch of delicious food that my mother chose for me
Outside of the city, he didn’t come to visit
An acquaintance suddenly asked and was confused
The poem he sang with his heart
Afternoon drop a drop of stars On the last day of the sky
I know it’s fun up there
You know up there, who’s with you?
Here is the wind, the sky is blue
The eyes of the countryside are still filled with love for the countryside
Light the fire early and late at night
From time to time outside, who stepped back, thought he…
Thanh Tri December 1983
Source: Soldier’s Heart (poetry), Nguyen Si Dai, Youth Publishing House, 1998

Poem: Farewell

Goodbye

Goodbye, a crimson sail
A river of purple ink flows in the sky
That young flower, holding a white flower
There is a day when the white flowers turn to clouds!
Goodbye, goodbye my heart
Loving voice sent to the day of the red phoenix
There is no one there, sad feet on small pebbles
Leaves bring souls, fall and fly up!
If only I didn’t have a heart
After being broken, rekindled again
Then I was in the afternoon emotionless eyes
And I do not wind choking a horizon.
Well, hello, there are many people over there
There is a whole spring waiting
I’m back with that white flower spirit
With the river of purple ink dried up in life!
11/27-03
Nguyen Si Dai’s poetry is simple and full of emotions. His poetry always goes into people’s hearts and is loved by readers.