Teresa Mei Chuc (Chúc Mỹ Tuệ )
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"The Poem I Can't Yet Name"

7/11/2012

2 Comments

 
I heard Bruce Weigl read this poem at UMass Boston and I cried through each word of it. 
 
"The Poem I Can't Yet Name"
 
My hands lift high a bowl of rice, the seeds harvested
in the field where my grandmother was laid to rest.
Each rice seed tastes sweet as the sound of lullaby
from the grandmother I never knew.
I imagine her soft face as they laid her down into the earth,
her clothes battered, her skin stuck to her bones;
in the great hunger of 1945, my village
was hungry for graves to bury all the dead.
Nobody could find my grandmother's grave,
so my father tasted bitter rice for sixty-five years.
 
After sixty-five years, my father and I
stood in front of my grandmother's grave.
I heard my father call "Mum," for the first time;
the rice field behind his back trembled.
...
 
My feet cling to the mud.
I listen in the burning incense to my grandmother's soul
spread; uniting deep with the earth; taking root in the field,
she quietly sings lullabies, calling rice plants to blossom.
 
Lifting the bowl of rice in my hands, I count every seed,
each one glistening with the sweat of my relatives,
their backs bent in the rice fields,
the fragrance of my grandmother's lullaby alive on each one.
 
by Nguyen Phan Que Mai
trans. by Nguyen Phan Que Mai and Bruce Weigl
from the book "Stars in the Shape of Carrying Poles"
published in VN by the Hoi Nha Van (Writers Association)
2 Comments
bruce weigl
8/23/2012 10:35:05 am

Thank you for sharing Que Mai's lovely poem on the internet. She came across your site and then sent me the link. Hope you enjoyed your time at the Center. Take good care.

My best to you,

BW

Reply
Teresa Mei Chuc
5/17/2013 01:46:57 pm

Thank you so much, Bruce. I somehow just got this message because the comments were going to an email I no longer used. I just updated my email. The Joiner Center was an incredible and transformative experience last summer.

Very best and warmest wishes to you,

Teresa

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    Teresa Mei Chuc is a writer of poetry and creative non-fiction.

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